CNBR
by sungrass
Summary: After the fall of Beacon, strange reports emerge from the fringes of Vale. With no experienced huntsmen available to investigate, Vale leadership assembles a scouting party from the fragments of academy teams to investigate. As the only non-Beacon huntress, Reese Chloris thought her biggest challenge would be adapting to her temporary new team. She was wrong.
1. Chapter 1

"Vale and Mistral have other scientists. _Grown_ ones. I still don't see why you're so damn important."

Reese tugged the strap on her pack tighter to her shoulder, wondering the exact same thing. Goodwitch and the rest of Vale's leadership had asked her to come to The Cove and bring whatever essential equipment would fit into a few large packs. She had fulfilled the first part of the request. As for the second…

She looked over her shoulder, back along the tarmac. Twenty paces back Nadir and Bolin were tugging a pair of crates mounted on levitating dollies, early prototypes of what eventually became her hoverboard. Reese rode on her hoverboard, pulling a dolly and crate of her own. Arslan had spurned using any form of assistance, opting to carry her crate across her back like a coolie, grasping the thick strap she had wrapped around it with one hand. Her usual look of exasperation had grown surlier over the last day and a half, and every second Reese ignored her statement, her scowl grew deeper. Reese coughed.

"You're not wrong," she said. "But they told me all Vale's experienced scientists and huntsmen are busy trying to keep the capital together right now. They're relying on the junior huntsmen to pick up the slack. I guess they finally ran out of qualified Beacon students."

Arslan growled. "Qualified for what? I appreciate the need for inter-kingdom cooperation, but things are about to get hairy back home. I'd like to know why I'm going to be missing my only halfway-competent team member."

"My mentors from back home recommended me," Reese said. "If they think I can be useful, I want to help."

"And you still don't know why they want a dust engineer. This is why I hate Vale. They act like they're nothing like Atlas, then they hide secrets with major consequences. At least Atlas doesn't pretend to be transparent."

"Arslan, that's not fair."

She scoffed. "What? You're telling me Ozpin had no idea there was a giant dragon grimm buried inside a mountain?" Reese didn't reply.

They stopped inside the hangar the guard had directed them towards and unloaded the crates, Arslan setting hers down with a heavy, controlled 'thump'. The Cove was Vale's only large military base, filled with research labs, proving grounds, training facilities, and hangars similar to the one they had entered. This particular hangar was attached to the main command building. Reese looked up at the far wall and saw windows from a conference room overlooking the interior of the building. Lights were on and shadows moved, but no one approached the glass.

"Up there, huh?" Arslan asked, leaning against the crate, her arms folded. "I'll walk you up. Bolin, Nadir, watch Reese's stuff."

The other two huntsmen nodded. Reese and Arslan walked through the door at the rear of the hangar, then turned left to climb the stairs. They walked in tense silence for a while before Reese spoke.

"Listen," she said as they ascended. "I know you're not happy about me leaving so abruptly, but after the Vytal Tournament and the fight at Beacon, I think I'll be better in a support role."

"Sounds like your skill exceeds your enthusiasm for once," said Arslan.

"Well, maybe I got my delusions knocked out of me! Maybe skating in Mistral's slums and getting into street fights doesn't translate into skill as a huntress!"

They exited into a hallway on the top floor and Reese leaned back against the wall, looking down. "Maybe I shouldn't have been allowed into Haven," she said, her voice quiet.

"Hey," Arslan said. Reese ignored her. Arslan grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. "Look at me!"

Reese locked eyes with her leader and pouted.

"I've never allowed that self-pitying crap on ABRN and I'm not starting now," said Arslan. "Yeah, you're our weakest fighter, but do you think I would have let someone who should have washed out stay on our team? Do you think we'd have even made it to the tournament?"

Reese just glared wordlessly, then tore away from Arslan, heading towards the conference room at the end of the hall. Arslan scowled and stormed past Reese, intentionally shoving her with her shoulder as she walked ahead.

"Bolin's strength, your brains, and Nadir's medical skills. I swear, sometimes I feel like I'm the only complete person on this team."

Reese winced, then hurried to catch up. Arslan kept muttering something about ABRN's failings, until they drew closer to the door. Shouting, punctuated by the occasional muffled thump, leaked into the hall. Arslan's frustration turned into caution. She exchanged a wary look with Reese. They nodded in unison, then Arslan opened the door.

"—I don't care how good they are, that's not the point! I want a team I have experience working with for a mission like this. This isn't a simple village outreach or search and destroy, this requires a greater degree of cohesion, and all of you have enough experience to realize that!"

Coco punctuated her last remark by slamming her fist into the conference table hard enough to scuff the wood. The three other people present in the room—a fit man in a suit sitting at the far end of the table, a frail looking man with thinning strawberry hair standing behind his right shoulder, and a woman sitting a few chairs down from the seated man—all looked to the open door. Coco followed their gaze from where she was standing and turned to see Arslan and Reese.

"Hey guys. Haven't seen you two since the fight at Beacon."

"We weren't exactly pen pals when you graduated Sanctum either, Adel," Arslan said as they entered the room. "Still, you ended up with a solid team. If Reese is tagging along with your crew, all I have to worry about is her coming back with a haughty attitude."

Coco flashed her a grim smile. "Funny you should say that: the members of our little inter-kingdom coalition were just telling me I can't bring the rest of my team with me. We're assembling a provisional team for this mission—from scratch."

"What," Arslan said.

"Yeah!" Coco said, then turned to the group at the table's end. " _That's what I said."_

Reese and Arslan looked towards the seated man, who smiled with calm good humor at Coco.

"Miss Adel, we told you that this mission required a very specific skillset. Team CFVY has proven themselves repeatedly, but we feel that your teammates lack those specific skills. Furthermore, I seem to recall you mentioning—quite proudly, I might add—that Miss Scarlatina and Mr. Alistair were involved in a project here at The Cove. We can't spare them in the field right now."

"Then why even ask me?" Coco said.

"Because of all Vale's available huntsmen, professional or student, you have the best leadership record."

"No, you said that already. Why ask me if you're going to deploy Mistral huntsmen? Why not send all of ABRN?"

"The three of us discussed this with Professor Goodwitch," said the woman, smoothing the sleeves of her green suit jacket. "Councilor Stonebridge and Dr. Rouge feel that a force comprised primarily of Vale huntsmen would perform better due to their familiarity with the kingdom's geography. Stonebridge and I also feel this approach respects Vale's jurisdiction in the matter."

"What did the Professor have to say about it?" Coco asked.

"Glynda wanted a more experienced force to execute this mission," Stonebridge said, rising from his seat and walking towards the three huntresses. "Unfortunately, all our professional huntsmen in Vale are occupied with urgent matters at the moment, and Ambassador Sylva tells me that Mistral is in a similar condition: No overt crisis yet, but tension has been rising in Mistral ever since the aftermath of the Vytal festival. Glynda is… _accepting_ of our reasoning, if not particularly enthusiastic about it."

Arslan sighed, speaking slowly to control her frustration.

"I follow your logic. But if Reese is so important, wouldn't it make sense for at least one member of my team to come along? If you tell me what it is, I can do it; Ambassador Sylva can vouch for my abilities."

The ambassador shifted in her seat, uncomfortable. "The decision to exclude you and the rest of your team was actually unanimous. Although you are an accomplished huntress, Hori and Shiko lack certain qualities we need for this mission. And after examining ABRN and CFVY's field records we determined that Team CFVY is capable of acting independently while Coco is deployed elsewhere. We don't believe that your colleagues on Team ABRN are capable of that degree of autonomy."

There was a loud crash from the hangar down below. Stonebridge and the three huntresses moved to the windows and saw Bolin and Nadir sprawled on the floor, surrounded by the contents of a toppled crate. Arslan palmed her face and sighed.

"I'm going to kill them," she said under her breath.

"Hey, it's not a big deal!" Reese said. "Who cares if the team is assembled from scratch? If Vale recruited me, it can't be anything like a search and destroy. What are we doing? Patching infrastructure for a rural settlement? Field-testing some new Cove tech?"

"I'm afraid we can't discuss that with Miss Altan present," said Stonebridge. "Once she leaves the room we can divulge some of the classifi—"

"Deep-wilderness recon," Coco said, her arms folded. Stonebridge glared at her and she returned his gaze without blinking.

"Something strange has been going on in the southwest. We're going to be out there on our own until we find out what it is. We think it might involve—"

"Say another word Miss Adel, and I'll have you arrested!"

"I'm not going to lead someone who doesn't know what we want her to do!"

"Councilor," said Sylva, rising from her seat. "She raises a valid concern. Miss Altan should have a rough idea of the mission requirements if she's going to be loaning us her teammate."

She looked at Coco. "That said, I would divulge only what's necessary, Miss Adel. If I had to devote energy towards any security risks arising from you oversharing classified information, I would need to defer resolving your family situation for an indeterminate period of time."

Coco swallowed. She nodded towards the Mistral Ambassador, then turned to Reese and Arslan.

"So, I can only say what we're looking for and how Reese figures into that with her. What I can say to both of you is that we'll be deployed long-term with minimal support from Vale. We're not mounting any sort of major assault, we want to run this fast and stealthy. Reese will primarily act as a specialist with the rest of us handling any combat."

She focused solely on Reese. "We may not encounter anything more than small packs of grimm or a few bandits, but you do need to be ready to fight if the need arises. You think you can handle that?"

Reese tightened the strap on her glove. "Sounds pretty vital."

"It may end up being nothing, but that's not a gamble anyone wants to make. Vale has a lot to worry about right now and we want to know what we're dealing with. We've been getting along okay since Beacon fell, but no one likes our chances of dealing with a second major disaster."

Reese shuffled her feet. Everyone she spoke with prior to coming here had suggested she'd work in Vale proper, maybe leave the city for a couple days at most. The prospect of a journey into the southwestern wilds was not something she had prepared for. And yet, travelling light, simple observation, and minimal fighting…what self-respecting huntress couldn't handle that? She plastered the cockiest grin she could manage onto her face and shrugged, palms up.

"I guess I'm your girl."

…

Reese cruised in a circle on a patch of tarmac near the bullheads, spinning and flipping her hoverboard to burn some excess energy while she waited for Arslan. Ambassador Sylva and Councilor Stonebridge had asked to discuss something with her, so she remained behind while Reese walked her teammates to their flight home to Mistral.

Bolin and Nadir had boarded after saying their farewells. Bolin had yanked her hood down and mussed her hair through the fabric like he usually did when he wanted to tease her, but after they parted Reese saw him wink and noticed her hoodie pockets had been weighed down with several military-grade lightning dust crystals. Reese suspected Vale leadership would supply her with any dust she requested before they deployed, but she appreciated the gesture all the same. Nadir gave her a first-aid kit that possessed such a large variety and number of items it seemed bigger on the inside than the outside. He hugged her, saying; "Stay safe, _ukht saghira_ ," then left to follow Bolin.

Reese hopped off the board, kicked it up and caught it, then sat on the ground, leaning back against a parked cart. For almost two years, she had spent nearly every day with ABRN sparring, studying, and occasionally sneaking off campus to visit some of the less reputable parts of the capital, much to Arslan's aggravation. By the time they returned to Mistral, it would be the longest she'd spent apart from them since ABRN was formed. Reese couldn't begin to fathom how far she'd be from them or how long she'd be gone. Feeling anxious, she flipped over her board and separated it into its halves, examining the circuitry to occupy herself.

From back towards the hangar she heard laughter. Turning, she saw Coco laughing at something Arslan had said as they walked in her direction. Arslan didn't look particularly jovial, but she didn't look irritated anymore either. When they were twenty or so paces away, Coco stopped Arslan and shook her hand, then took out her scroll and paced while she made a call. Arslan continued towards Reese and the bullheads.

"You two look like you reached an understanding," Reese said, climbing to her feet.

"Yeah, we both hate all the paperwork and bureaucracy Stonebridge and Sylva inflicted on us," she said. "Besides, Adel was never my main concern. I give her a hard time, but she's changed a lot since Sanctum. You'll be in good hands."

"You think you'll pick up a substitute while I'm gone?"

"Probably not. We'll just take some small jobs in the capital and finish out our time at Haven. We _do_ still have an academy we can return to."

"I'd seriously consider a fill-in," Reese said, in a sing-song tone. "Bolin will behave since you can watch two huntsmen closer than three, but Nadir is going to want a new wingman in his endless quest for true love."

Arslan made a face. "Why do you put up with that?"

"Because it's sweet in a pathetic sort of way and because I don't know how to say 'no'? And surprisingly, he's sometimes a solid wingman in return. His attempts to set me up don't always work, but when they do—"

"Stop. I'll live a longer, healthier life the less I know about my team's love lives."

Reese stuck out her tongue. They paused for a moment before Arslan spoke again:

"You do know you don't have to do this, right?"

"Yeah, I know," Reese said, rubbing the back of her neck. "Coco and that guy from Vale were very clear that I could bail up until we fly out to deploy."

"I wasn't talking about them."

Reese looked at Arslan. She stood arms folded, stern as ever, but there was a stiff character to her posture that gave a brittle impression instead of a strong one.

"Even if you feel like dead weight you're—still a valuable part of ABRN, Reese. You know that, right?"

Reese felt her cheeks warm. "I…yeah, I do. But for whatever reason they need me—"

"—and you've got something to prove, even though I think that's a stupid idea that would be less stupid back in Mistral." Arslan sniffed. "Do what you have to then. It's one less stubborn dumbass I have to deal with for a while."

Reese perked up a bit. "You could always pay for teammates if you're so concerned about us dragging down your status."

"I think you delinquents are actually rubbing off on me. Maybe you can give me a tour of the Mistral underbelly when you get back."

"The distinguished Miss Altan wants to try the street urchin life?" Reese said, grinning. "Now I've heard everything."

Arslan smirked. "Take care of yourself, Reese." She clapped a hand on Reese's shoulder, gave it a firm squeeze, and walked off towards her flight. Reese leaned back against the cart watching the bullhead until it had flown out of view. Coco chose that moment to appear at her shoulder.

"Are you ready? We've got a lot to discuss."

"Yeah. Let's get started."


	2. Chapter 2

CNBR Chapter 2:

"So who else is joining us?" Reese asked around a mouthful of noodles. The Cove's mess hall offered a surprising amount of variety for a military installation thanks to the amount of huntsman and third-party consultants that passed through the base. Coco held up a finger as she chewed her food.

"I'm eager to find that out myself," she said after a moment. "I made several recommendations but they all got turned down. Stonebridge and the others apparently have a very specific idea of who they want to bring in."

Reese made a face. "Seriously? You don't know what we're after, you don't know who's coming with us, and you don't know who's causing all this trouble. I thought you were the conductor of our little party train."

Coco set her utensils down with a loud 'CLINK' and gave Reese a hard look. Reese bit her lip to keep from snickering at Coco's reaction.

"I may be in charge, but even conductors have bosses," Coco said in a measured tone. "We've actually got an idea of who might be doing this, but I want to wait for the other two to arrive to discuss that. In the meantime, you can work on paring down that ridiculous amount of gear you brought into an amount you can actually carry with you."

Reese held her hands up. "Hey, no one told me what I'd be doing, so I brought stuff I was picky about and some things Vale might not be willing to share. I'll just bring my most versatile tools and anything else useful that I can carry. Of course, it's more difficult to prioritize if I don't know the mission parameters."

Coco sighed pinching her temples. "Alright. Some villages in the southwest have been attacked over the last two months. The White Fang has periodically raided them in the past, so normally we'd treat it like any low-level Fang or bandit activity: send the least important team capable of handling the situation once we worked through more critical missions. But there's something unsettling about these attacks that made Vale leadership concerned."

"Unsettling?" Reese asked. Coco leaned across the table and Reese mirrored the movement.

"A couple villages were completely slaughtered, a no-prisoners affair like a bandit attack. One was a complete ghost town; everything left untouched, from laundry on the lines, to food in the ovens. No signs of struggle, no locked doors, not even spent shell casings from a dust weapon. Everyone just gone. News from villages that are still intact in the region mention weird things happening that Vale would normally disregard, except that one of those things is an unusually high amount of disappearances."

"You think it was some new kind of grimm?" Reese asked, quiet.

Coco shook her head. "I've seen some weird stuff since deciding to become a huntress, and this _is_ royally creepy, but I think that whatever this is, it's human—or faunus; either way these attacks left the buildings untouched for the most part. Grimm lack that subtlety. We think bandits or a group of White Fang got their hands on some sort of new weapon or armor, and they're testing it in the remote corners of Vale; familiarizing themselves with it before they use it for anything of strategic importance. This horror movie crap they're doing is just a way to conceal their numbers and keep people from figuring out their motives."

Reese rubbed her chin, looking thoughtful. "If it's some new tech that explains why they wanted me along."

Coco raised an eyebrow. "Why, do you fight ghosts in your spare time?"

Reese shook her head. "No. I like fighting, but I'm not really good at it. But give me some tools and enough time, and I can make damn near anything you want if it runs on dust."

Coco straightened up, comprehension spreading across her face. "So that's what Arslan meant by 'dust engineer'."

Reese grinned. "Right. I'm not sure if it's a low-key semblance or just the way my brain works, but dust tech just instinctually makes sense to me. I'm not a programmer, and I can't build anything major like aircraft or an Atlesian Paladin, but I can make things like personal dust weaponry, medium-sized generators, sensors, and some other nifty stuff." She patted the hoverboard leaning against the bench she sat on.

"You got any other tricks?" Coco asked.

"I can backwards engineer things more sophisticated than what I can design from scratch. Not well enough to replicate them, but enough to understand the basics of how they work or make some minor functional changes."

"Could you hack some Atlesian Knights?"

"Not if they're already attacking like at Beacon. But give me a deactivated one and I could upgrade its weapons, maybe rewire the IFF system—though the one time I tried that, it didn't go so well."

Coco gave her an amused look. "Your talents sound out of place on Team ABRN."

"Ugh, tell me about it," Reese said leaning back. "Arslan doesn't trust anything that needs ammo, and Bolin thinks he's so damn cool running around with a bo staff. It's like pulling teeth trying to get them to upgrade their gear."

Coco snorted. "Easy, killer." She stood and stretched, leaning to one side until her neck popped.

"Let me show you where we put your stuff."

…

After leaving the mess hall they walked to a small hangar across the base from the command building, arriving at a nondescript side door. Coco pressed her palm to a digital pad set into the wall next to the door. The door slid open without a sound and they walked in.

"After they moved your gear in, this placed got keyed to the three big wigs and our team members. No one goes in or out without someone directly involved in the mission knowing."

Inside, crates stacked three high and several rows deep bordered the room. A pegboard with a vast array of tools lined the back wall along with a few workbenches. In the center of the room, a matte black bullhead sat like a squat but menacing raven. Reese's crates sat apart from the Vale military ones, sitting in the shadow of the bullhead's tail.

"I thought you said we were travelling light," Reese said, scanning the room.

"We are, but Dr. Rouge thought it best to keep everything in a larger storage building; hide everything in plain sight. A fraction of a fraction of this is actually coming with us."

Reese snorted. "Whatever. But when we get out there, I better not find an extra bag with your fall wardrobe becau-UMMPPHH!"

Coco clamped a hand over Reese's mouth and dragged her behind one of the stacks of crates. She locked eyes with Reese, raising a finger to her lips. They exchanged nods, Coco let go of her, and they pressed their backs against the crates. Reese gave Coco a bewildered look.

"What's wrong?" she whispered.

"I heard someone," Coco hissed back. "Stonebridge, Sylva, and Dr. Rouge are the only other people who have access right now, we've got a break-in."

"How do you know it's not them?"

"They all have places to be this time of night. Besides, listen:"

Reese cocked her ear towards the center of the hangar. At first she couldn't hear it, but then the sound grew louder. Footsteps crossed the floor towards their side of the hangar, moving towards a spot about half the length of a bullhead down the row of crates they were hiding behind. Over the footsteps, someone was humming.

Reese gave Coco a flat look. "I doubt that an intruder would be stupid enough to _hum_ while they were sneaking around."

"You're telling me you've never fought anyone dumber than your teammates? Besides, do you really think any of our superiors are the humming type?"

Reese raised a finger in protest, then lowered it. "Okay then, what's the plan?"

"I don't want to open fire in here because a stray round could hit the bullhead or one of the crates of dust, but I can use my gun in melee when it's compact, and I saw how you used your board in your match against Team RWBY. We sneak close to whoever this is, I'll come at them around the side of a crate and you go over the top. If anything bad happens, I'll hold them here while you go for backup."

"What's the signal for jumping them?"

Coco drew one of the dust rounds out of her belt then pantomimed tossing it underhand. Reese nodded.

"Gotcha, lead on."

Coco and Reese moved behind the crates as quick as they could without making a sound. They stopped opposite the intruder, the humming now accompanying the sound of rummaging through a container. Coco boosted Reese so she could scale the stack of crates, then edged into a gap in the front row. Reese inched to the edge of her perch, pricking up her ears. A few moments later, she heard a pinging noise as the dust round bounced across the hangar. She heard the intruder shift to look towards the round and pounced.

"SURPRISE MOTHE—"

A hand caught Reese's boot as she leapt down and yanked her out of her initial trajectory, swinging her into Coco as she came around the corner. The blow sent Coco flying, landing on her back several feet away. The intruder spun, swinging Reese into a crate and knocking the wind out of her. Before she could react, the intruder hefted Reese by her collar and shoved her against the stack of crates glaring at her. Reese froze, her vision filled with orange.

Coco got to her feet, grabbed her gun, and then stopped. Her jaw dropped open.

"Nora?"

The redhead turned to look at Coco, and her expression quickly cycled from grimacing to smiling to mortified shock.

"Coco!" she said, dropping Reese. "I'm so sorry! Are you okay?"

"I'm… _confused_ ," Coco said. "How did you get in here, Valkyrie?"

Nora cocked her head, looking at her like she was trying to figure out if Coco had a head injury. "I used the door?"

"Right, but that door was secured by a handprint lock, which…" Coco trailed off, making the connection. " _You're_ part of the special recon team?"

"Yep!" Nora chirped.

"No! I can't believe this, this is, this is—"

Reese climbed to her feet, massaging her shoulder from where it had hit Coco. She looked between Coco failing to process this new development and Nora frowning at her reaction. Reese clutched her head as it started to throb in sync with her shoulder.

"I have no clue what's going on. Why is this a problem?"

"Yeah!" said Nora. "I mean I know we didn't spend a lot of time together at Beacon, but we've seen each other fight."

"Nora," Coco said, taking a deep breath to steady herself. "I respect your abilities as a huntress. Pound for pound, I think you're one of the toughest students out of Beacon. But this is supposed to be a stealth mission, and words like 'sneaky' and 'quiet' aren't exactly what springs to mind when someone mentions you."

"Oh," Nora said, brightening. "The whole stealth thing! It's not my favorite approach, but don't you worry, I can adapt to the mission."

Reese flinched at the volume of Nora's voice. "No offense, but I'm skeptical."

"The Councilor thought you might say that! He said if I laid low for a while after getting here, I could demonstrate just how sneaky I can be. I almost made it three days, but I guess my luck finally ran out."

"You've been here for three days?" Coco asked, frustration creeping into her voice.

"I didn't miss a whole lot," Nora said, waving a hand. "Mostly it was you working out, sleeping, and checking in with the rest of Team CFVY on your scroll."

A sheepish look crossed Nora's face and her cheeks reddened. "Don't worry, whenever the conversations started getting… _personal_ , I left the room or put on my headphones. I have no idea who was on the other end of the line for those conversations."

Reese glanced at Coco. The brown-haired girl looked like she couldn't decide between murdering someone and setting herself on fire. A strange quavering sound creaked out of her mouth, resolving into a growl as it grew louder. Before she could burst Reese stepped between the two, facing Nora.

"So, Nora," Reese said, mentally grasping for any topic change. She remembered the girl now, recalling the Vytal festival and the battle of Beacon afterwards, but she struggled for details beyond watching her fight. All she could recall were Nora's weapon, her semblance, her team—

"Did anyone else come with you?" Reese asked. "You had that one guy on your team who dodged sniper fire. If he's coming, we're going to kick some serious ass."

Nora didn't lose her enthusiasm, but it dulled just a little. "No, it's just me."

"Really?" Coco asked. "Not even Ren?"

Reese froze, a feeling of unease rippling from her stomach out to the ends of her limbs. Coco had almost burst with anger moments ago, but all that emotion was gone now, replaced with a calm, but intense curiosity. If the sudden shift in her mood had unsettled Nora the way it had Reese, Nora didn't show it. The redhead just folded her arms and shrugged.

"They were going to visit Ruby and Yang on Patch, see if they could keep them company and if we could figure what to do next."

"Okay," Coco said, "But you guys—after Beacon—"

"Ren's a great fighter, but his stamina wouldn't cut it on this mission. And Jaune…Jaune needs a little more time before he does anything like this."

Silence fell over the room at the allusion. Reese shifted her feet. She had never directly interacted with Pyrrha Nikos but she had seen her that final night of the tournament, and every media outlet in Mistral had run a story on her passing; everything from token obits, to the retrospective of her short career in _The Sporting Mistralian_. Coco took off her beret, then broke the silence.

"That seems like a sound decision."

"Oh absolutely!" Nora said, changing the subject. "Do you know who our fourth team member is?"

Coco gave Nora a tight smile. "You'll know as soon as I do. Judging by how I found out about you, I'm sure it'll be just as unexpected."

…

After their encounter with Nora, Reese retrieved a few items from her crates and Coco showed her their quarters. The rooms were small, like someone had placed a single bed, a small desk, and a small closet inside a slightly bigger closet; but they were single rooms so they felt just on the cozy side of cramped.

Reese settled in, but had trouble falling asleep. The day's events looped in her head, starting with her argument with Arslan, and ending with the unusual exchange between her new teammates at the end of their encounter in the hangar. Something about it nagged at her more than the other things that had happened, keeping her roused well after she turned off the light. After dwelling on it for a while, she chalked it up to the inherent discomfort of bringing up a death that had been both extremely personal and extremely public for Nora and her friends. Reese turned on her side and closed her eyes for what felt like a few minutes. Cracking one eye open, she saw a half-hour had passed.

Sighing, she flicked the light back on and pulled on her hoodie. She drew the sheet around herself to keep warm and sat at the desk, opening a notebook. She scribbled in it for a bit, deciding which tools she would bring on the mission and drafting some design modifications to her hoverboard until her eyes grew heavy, then flopped back down on the narrow bed.

She had almost drifted off entirely when her scroll buzzed. She jerked, groaning as she reached over to her scroll. The screen read 'Coco'. Reese grumbled, but answered the call.

"Come to the hangar," Coco said. "I want to talk to you about upgrading my gun."

"It's past midnight, your gun will be there tomorrow."

"We've been assigned together for less than twenty-four hours, do you really want to argue with me this soon?"

Reese let out an exasperated sigh. "I'm coming."

She ended the call, grabbed her notebook, and walked down the hall. Everything was silent except for the low hum of the lights overhead and some loud snores as she passed by Nora's room. She found Coco standing by the pegboard in the back of the hangar, dressed in sweats and a tank top, her hair pulled back with a strip of cloth. Her minigun sat on a workbench, the inner workings exposed, as she applied oil from a can to the machinery within. Reese suppressed a smirk. Even getting her hands dirty, Coco looked more like a publicity image of a huntress than the genuine article.

Coco pulled one of the triggers. The entire barrel assembly spun, making a whirring sound, and Reese's snark disappeared. The sound relaxed her the same way stuffy classical music always relaxed Arslan. She leaned against the wall, arms folded, smiling at the rotating barrels.

"You sure you need my help for this?" she asked, raising her voice slightly.

Coco looked up, letting go of the trigger. "I can maintain _Belle Mort_ just fine. Designing changes is another story. Anything beyond a rough sketch of modifications, I defer to the experts. I don't trust myself with engineering or implementation."

"What did you have in mind?"

"When I watched your match against Team RWBY back in the tournament, I saw how you switched your board's elemental effect with that dust crystal. I'd like you to modify my gun to use elemental effects without switching drums or using designated elemental ammunition. Is that possible?"

"It might be complex, but I could do it." Reese walked towards the gun, peering into its innards. Coco pulled her back.

"You don't have to do that just yet."

"Seriously? You dragged me out of bed, and now you don't want me to evaluate your weapon?"

"You can if you want." Coco lowered her voice. "I asked you here because I need to talk to you, and discussing weapon upgrades is a good excuse if people ask what we're doing."

Coco's face grew serious, but it wasn't her usual commanding look. There was an earnest element to it, like she was concealing some deep-seated uncertainty or nervousness.

"After we ran into Nora, I patched things over with her; we're good now. Then I talked to Stonebridge—angrily. Told him I didn't appreciate how they withhold information to a degree I feel jeopardizes our ability to prepare for this mission, and asked why we're bringing the most trigger-happy huntress I've ever met on a recon mission."

"What did he say?" Reese asked.

"He said he wanted Nora to go because the big wigs all agreed that they needed someone who—in his words—they knew could 'take a punch'. Truthfully, I'm glad she's with us if things don't go according to plan. I'm tough, but Nora makes me look like a china doll. The thing that concerns me is that if they want that much force, then they really don't want to leave anything to chance—which means that you need to be committed. Have you been having any second thoughts?"

Reese shuffled. "Maybe," she said. "This whole assignment got weird fast."

"Like we said earlier, since you're on loan from Haven you can still drop out at this phase. But the fact that Mistral's ambassador agreed to help Vale suggests they think whatever we're after could potentially affect Mistral as well. If you leave, we'll be losing the only person who can examine whatever weird science is going on in Vale's far reaches. I need you on this, but I am far from the only person who does. Are you with us?"

Coco held out her hand. Reese looked at it, contemplating Coco's words. She thought of chucking empty cans off a rooftop with idiot Bolin, sneaking into bars and watching Nadir attempt to flirt with every girl in Mistral, and Arslan's mostly failed endeavors to culture ABRN. If something happened to Mistral they could probably handle themselves; but their families, their homes?

Reese grasped Coco's hand and shook it. "I'm with you."

"Good!" she said, withdrawing her hand. She began to put away the tools.

"If it makes you feel better, our leaders are pretty risk-averse. If they thought there was a high chance of heavy resistance, they'd be sending more than just the four of us."

"Four? We have our last team member?"

"Stonebridge was frustratingly coy again, but he said we've got our fourth. They'll be meeting us close to departure apparently—which, by the way, is in five days. So you should probably get started on the modifications." Coco hung the last wrench up and wiped her hands on a greasy rag.

"I thought you said this could wait!" Reese said.

"I did, but we're done talking." She gave Reese a playful punch on the shoulder as she walked out. "Clock's ticking, Chloris!"

Reese grumbled alone in the massive room, her shoulders slumped. Then she straightened up, grabbing a few hand tools from the pegboard. She began poking through _Belle Mort's_ internals.

 _Not like I'm going to fall back asleep anytime soon,_ she thought.


	3. Chapter 3

The next four days passed quickly. Reese was pleasantly surprised with the amount of sleep she managed to get, but Coco made her earn it with the nonstop activity of their waking hours. When Reese wasn't working on equipment, she either sparred or exercised with the other two huntresses. But despite the effort it entailed, the training made Reese more confident about their mission. The thought of being punched by Nora again, even at maximum Aura levels, made the prospect of fighting hordes of grimm seem appealing. The strained expression of stoicism Coco often wore following a match suggested she felt the same way, even if she'd never admit it. As Reese reached for the door something slammed into it, shaking it on its hinges, causing her to yelp and jump back.

"Had enough, Coffee Grounds?" Nora's voice taunted from inside. From the other side of the door Reese heard a groan, and the sound of someone climbing to their feet, swearing as they did so.

"I can't he-ear you-OOAHH!" There was a loud slam and the sounds of struggle receded back from the door. Reese took the opportunity to enter without getting hit by anything airborne and stared at the fight. Coco had one of Nora's arms pinned behind her, but it appeared to require all of her strength and weight. Nora, despite her smaller stature, managed to climb to her feet and hook her free arm under one of Coco's legs like she was going to carry her. She thrashed and spun trying to toss Coco off her back while Coco's free leg flailed uselessly. Then she leapt up and backwards, travelling parallel to the ground for a second before slamming Coco against the floor. Both of them panted, Coco gritting her teeth, while Nora grinned, manic. Reese stared for a moment processing the scene, her cheeks red, then shook her head like a wet dog.

"If you guys are finished, your gear is ready for a test drive," she said.

"Ooh!" said Nora, craning her head to look at her opponent. "Coco, new toys!" She gave her a pat on the cheek with her free arm and rolled off, slipping out of Coco's now loose grip.

"Great," Coco said, barely audible. She lay still a few more moments before climbing to her feet. As they walked to the firing range, Reese grinned.

"I know some huntsmen who'd pay a lot of lien to watch a match like that one if you guys want a cut," she said.

"You couldn't afford me!" Nora chirped. Coco glared at Reese and slashed a finger across her throat. Reese blanched and walked faster.

The range was long. A paper target or a dummy of various shapes and species sat at the end of each lane. _Magnhild_ and _Belle Mort_ sat at the head of a shooting lane with a mock Ursa at the far end. Reese darted ahead to grab the hammer before Nora could pick it up. Nora frowned.

"Yours requires a little more explanation, Nora."

"But it's my baby!"

"Your 'baby' is now even less fit for indoor use."

Nora gasped and clapped her hands, trying to contain her excitement. Coco strode over to her gun and hefted it, looking it over.

"Not much heavier. You added what, five pounds?"

"Six," Reese said. "With the forge brick you've got in there, I didn't want to add too much weight, so that ruled out some of the more ambitious mods."

"What did you even change?"

Reese indicated a small box that sat on one side of the main body of the gun where it met the ammunition drum. She opened it and dropped a red crystal in.

"You may fire when ready, Captain!"

Coco fired the gun downrange and hail of flaming bullets shredded the Ursa dummy, lighting the fragments on fire. Reese held up a hand to stop and Coco released the trigger. Reese opened the box and switched what was left of the flame dust crystal with an ice dust crystal. Coco resumed firing and the far end filled with steam as the ice melted, dousing the flames.

Coco stopped firing and turned to look at Reese. "I'm impressed, but could you get around needing extra crystals? You couldn't have it all run off another forge brick?"

Reese shook her head. "You'd need a different brick and assembly for each element. If I did that, your gun would be too cumbersome and heavy, even for the really tall guy from your doubles match. Plus, it'd look ugly. With the modifications I made you can switch elements fairly quickly, and so long as the barrels aren't overheating it'll transition back to normal rounds while firing. Aside from too much fire dust overheating the barrels, the only downside is that you'll burn through a crystal pretty quick, so you shouldn't use them as your primary ammunition."

"So what you're telling me is I a need a second purse for the crystals?" Coco asked, smiling.

"You could use your belt, but I actually have something for the crystals."

Reese pulled off her boots and slipped her feet into a larger pair of boots that extended to her knees. Coco's eyes flashed with anger.

"Those are mine!"

"Yeah, and you had like five pairs. Which by the way, how the hell do you fight in these?" Reese took a step and wobbled, almost falling over.

"Those are custom fit, hand-tooled, functional works of _art_ , and if they break in combat because of you—"

"Relax!" Reese said, waving a hand. "Half of my job is knowing what _not_ to meddle with. I only made two changes. First, bandoleers for the crystals:"

Reese pointed to a shell holder mounted on the back of each boot just above the ankle, curving around towards the front of the boot in a 'c' shape. Each slot held a metal tube with a color-coded top. She switched back to her own boots and handed Coco the modified ones. Coco snatched them back, put them on, and took a few experimental steps around the room. Her expression softened after the third step.

"Barely any added weight, everything else is the same," she murmured. "You said you made two changes?"

Reese nodded and rolled over a handcart carrying a gutted Atlesian Knight.

"Click your heels together and give Ironsides here a kick."

Coco clicked her heels and gave the robot a straight kick to its torso. A burst of ice encased the robot and sent it tumbling off the cart. Coco grinned at Reese who looked fairly pleased with herself.

"How many shots do I get?" Coco asked.

"Just one per boot. You don't move fast enough to use a multi-shot pair like that Mercury guy from the tournament, but I figured a one-shot model could be useful for breaching charges or getting out of tight spots. Just don't load them with fire dust unless you're okay with risking a melted foot—and click them again so you don't accidentally discharge the other boot."

Coco clicked her heels a second time, then blinked, looking around in confusion.

"Where's Nora?" she asked.

Reese blanched and darted to where she had left _Magnhild_. The massive hammer was gone as well.

"No, no, no, no, no! She took the box!"

"Reese, whatever you did, it'll be fine. Nora's not stupid enough try her hammer out where it could cause a lot of damage."

"But she doesn't know what I did!" she said, grabbing Coco's shoulders. "Where would she go?"

"There's a heavy weapons range outside at the end of the hall, but it's a _hammer_. I doubt she—"

Reese shook Coco. "I barely touched the hammer! I just reinforced the insides to handle the special grenades I made for her!"

"You made what?"

From outside, a high-pitched whistle like the sound of fireworks amplified a hundred-fold pierced the walls, followed by a wall-rattling boom.

Reese shot out of the room, Coco running close behind.

…

The next morning Reese groaned, reclining in her seat and pulling her hood down over her eyes. Four sharp was too damn early for takeoff. She tried to nap while they waited for the flight crew to finish prep, but between the early morning chill and the sounds of the base, it was a futile goal. She shifted her body trying to get somewhat comfortable, before sighing and sitting up to stare bleary-eyed at the opposite wall of bullhead. A pair of arms from the adjacent seat wrapped around her torso and arms, squeezing her.

"I love you!"

"I'm aware of that Nora, this is the eighth bear hug you've given me since yesterday."

"And yet it's a fraction of the thanks you deserve. I'm just disappointed Coco wouldn't let us test the other ones you told me about."

Reese sighed. "I'm just glad you tried the flares first."

"And I'm glad for coffee!" a voice said. Nora and Reese turned to see Coco striding up the ramp at the bullhead's rear, holding a scuffed steel thermos in one hand and a metal cup in the other. She had an expression so sunny and forced the other two huntresses flinched.

"Coffee invigorates you, coffee makes you feel warm and alert, coffee doesn't go AWOL before the mission even starts!" She topped off her cup and drained it in the span of a few seconds. After a pause, Nora ventured a question:

"Are you talking about what you're drinking, or your actual team?"

Coco flung the cup down so hard it ricocheted off the floor and the wall above Nora's head before coming to rest in some cargo netting.

"DOES IT EVEN MATTER? I'm ready to make my goddamn thermos our fourth huntsman at this point!"

"I suppose I've been compared to worse things," a voice said. The three huntresses turned to the rear of the bullhead. A look of recognition crossed Coco and Nora's faces. A cloaked figure approached from the bottom of the ramp, carrying a single field pack. Once they were out of view of anyone outside the aircraft, the cloak dropped away to reveal a black-haired girl wearing a long white coat.

"You're the girl who drop-kicked me out of the ring in the Vytal tournament!" Reese exclaimed.

Coco made a shushing gesture with one hand, then smiled at the new girl, folding her arms.

"If I'd known you were the one joining us I'd have been more patient, Blake."

"It was a long trip," Blake said. "Plus, I wasn't the easiest person to find."

"Then why are you here? I _am_ happy you're coming, but most of my proposed team members were local. Even with the huntsmen shortage, they didn't need to look for anyone outside the city."

"Miss Belladonna is coming because her past association with the White Fang may be useful if they are responsible for the events in the southwest," Councilor Stonebridge said, entering from the same direction as Blake. "Plus, her skillset is well-suited to covert operations like this one."

"That's excellent," Coco said, a hint of sarcasm entering her voice. "I don't suppose you have any other surprises for me before we take off, do you? Or any other last minute adjustments?"

Stonebridge sighed but answered in a calm, if somewhat exhausted, tone:

"When Miss Belladonna's status as a White Fang defector became public in the fallout of the Vytal Festival, Glynda was willing to trust her because Ozpin had trusted her, and after discussing things with Glynda, so was I. The remainder of Vale's leadership and Ambassador Sylva were not. Hence what may have seemed like excess cloak-and-dagger surrounding her identity. As for the tight timeline, we thought it safer to have Blake come here instead of meeting in the field, despite the risk of having her identity exposed. The methods of communication we've been relying on since the CCT went down aren't as secure, and we didn't want to broadcast the coordinates or any revealing details to Blake in case they were intercepted."

Coco gave him an appraising look, then nodded.

"Is there anything else, sir?" she said, professional again.

"I've discussed all I need to with each of you," he said, looking each huntress in the eye. "Good luck."

…

After takeoff they all tried to sleep, but one by one they all gave up on the idea. Coco flipped through a notepad, making notes and chewing on her pen. She continued until Nora, unable to stop fidgeting, challenged her to a pushup contest which had yet to stop. After a minute or so of this, Blake closed her book and walked to the other side of the craft, weaving between two crates to sit a couple of seats down from Reese; who had opted to sit on the floor. Instead of reading again, she watched the green-haired huntress work on a piece of some larger device, a panel removed to expose wiring and circuitry. She moved a wrench about, her face calm and focused.

"You didn't strike me as a technically-inclined person," Blake said.

Reese looked up at Blake, then returned to her work. "I'm just full of surprises." She picked a soldering iron from a toolkit laid open on the floor and began working on a delicate-looking part of the device. Blake watched for another moment, then returned to her book. An acrid smell rose from the board and Blake scrunched her nose and coughed. Reese sighed, irritated.

"There are other seats if that bothers you."

"No, it's fine," Blake said. "It's quieter over here."

"That's not too difficult with Red on board," Reese said, gesturing in Nora's general direction.

"Even so, you're much calmer than I thought you'd be outside of a match."

"Gee, it's almost like we met in a fighting tournament, not a ballet recital."

Blake glared and turned away. Reese felt a brief flicker of smugness, then inwardly kicked herself for being sensitive. Apologizing would have been the right thing to do, but the words caught in her throat when she tried to speak. She looked over to see Blake examining Gambol Shroud, a small cleaning kit placed on the seat beside her. Reese sighed, and made the only apology she knew how to make.

"Can I see that for a second?" she said, pointing at the sword.

Blake raised an eyebrow, but handed her weapon over to Reese. Reese separated it into its halves and examined both, eyes squinted. After a minute she handed the katana half back to Blake and continued to inspect the sheath half. She ran a finger along the back tapping it near the handle.

"You ever wanted to cut something while this was on fire?" Reese asked.

"Can't say that I have," Blake said, giving her a bemused look.

"I could give this half an elemental flare, like a dust knife. Honestly, that's about the only alteration I'd consider making. Anything more drastic and I think I'd ruin your familiarity with it. I've seen huntresses with more complex weapons do a lot less than I've see you do with this. I like extra features, but they're no substitute for knowing your weapon."

"I don't want to modify my weapon," Blake said, taking the sheath back. She gave Reese a small smile. "But thank you for offering." Reese gave Blake a lazy salute with one of her tools. The aircraft banked suddenly and they both jumped at the profanity that erupted from the other side of the cabin. Nora appeared, fists raised in triumph.

"I just got crowned The Queen of Pushups!"

"That was a draw!" Coco said. "You got knocked over too!"

"Details. Whatcha working on Reese? Are you making Blake a rocket launcher?"

"It's not, and this one's for me. Well, I say that, but it'll benefit the whole team. It'll help with our gear situation."

"What'd really benefit us is a name," Nora said. "I've tried a bunch of combinations, but nothing works. I mean, The Team with No Name is both appropriate and awesome, but it doesn't roll off the tongue."

"We _do_ have a name, Nora," Coco said, joining the group. "For this mission, we're Team CNBR."

"I thought of that, but that's just an island somewhere off of Vacuo."

"It's also a dye used to produce Mistral Crimson."

"That's lame."

"It's also poisonous in its raw form," Blake said.

"Now that's more like it!"

* * *

I feel like I may have telegraphed that a little too much, but show of hands, who called the fourth team member? Thanks for reading!


	4. Chapter 4

The bullhead flew low over the treetops, skimming the foliage. It touched down in a small clearing, unloaded the huntresses and a few crates, and took off in just under two minutes. Blake and Nora watched the treeline for movement while Reese fiddled with a series of metal panels. Coco unfolded a map on top of a crate, orienting the group. She squinted in the dawn light.

"If we go southwest from here, we'll hit the closest slaughtered village. Due west might put us in touch with actual people at this village; Crescent Hollow. Reception's spotty under normal circumstances out here, so we don't know what their condition is."

"Check in with civilians, help if needed, and get some information?" Blake asked.

"That's what I'm thinking," Coco said. "It's a long way from here, but it's worth it if there's someone around to tell us about any new developments."

"Alright, let's roll out!" Nora said.

"Not yet, we have to conceal our cache first. I don't want to find our supplies missing when we come back."

"But it's so far! I don't wanna come all the way back here."

"It sucks, but we didn't want to risk getting spotted by flying any closer."

"Actually," Reese said, walking over to the map, "We may not have to make such a long trip back to the cache." She pored over the map for a minute, then tapped a spot with her finger.

"What's this? Looks like there's some sort of old logging road leading to it."

Coco peered at the marker. "Looks like a sawmill," she said. "This river here runs close to it, and the map indicates some of the densest forest in the region upstream of the site."

"We could hide the cache there. If we get to the road down here we could follow it to the sawmill. It'd put us close enough to Crescent Hollow that we could get to it easily, but not so close that we'd get spotted if there's someone unfriendly hiding near the town. Blake could scout ahead to make sure no one's watching for people on the road. It'd add a little extra travel time now, but trips to resupply would be shorter."

"Good plan, except that if we do that we won't make it to Crescent Hollow until dusk tomorrow. Nora and I are strong, but we can't just carry that stuff like backpacks."

"Who said you'd be carrying them?"

Coco raised an eyebrow and Reese grinned. She hopped on her hover board and stomped it towards the front. Panels unfolded from the middle section, increasing the board's length and width enough for two people in the middle, tapering to its normal width at the ends. Reese tapped something on her scroll and the larger panels she had worked with rose off the ground with only a slight hum, assembled into a hovering sledge. She rode up to it, hitched it to her board, and towed it back to Coco.

"Take two with us, leave the other two here?"

"I'm trying very hard not to look impressed."

…

After camouflaging the crates they left behind, Team CNBR set off through the forest. The thickness of the trees forced them to carry a deconstructed sledge and its cargo to the logging road, but it had only been about eighty yards, and Nora had moved most of it, eager to demonstrate her strength.

The road was more of a game trail, overgrown for miles at a stretch with grass that ended a couple inches above the knee. Sun peeked through the narrow gap in the canopy above the trail and filtered down through the leaves, but the trees were so tall they cast plentiful shadows even when midday came. Looking to either side, visibility faded into a mosaic of greens and browns after twenty or so feet.

Coco walked briskly at the head of the main group, while Nora alternated between skipping behind Reese's payload and riding on top of it. Blake would periodically appear from the underbrush along the sides of the trail and indicate they stop while she investigated disturbances around a bend or on the other side of a small rise. Once or twice Blake found a lone beowolf that she eliminated before it could draw the rest of the pack; the rest of the time it was false alarms.

Sometime in the early afternoon, the trees thinned and the trail adopted a gradual decline. Soon after they heard running water and saw the light of a clearing ahead. In it, an old mill with a partially collapsed roof sat alongside a clear narrow river. A few other buildings lay in the clearing, looking just as decrepit. The open space that remained was almost entirely filled with an even thicker growth of the tall grass, ending just above waist-height.

They stopped a little short of the treeline while Blake scouted the area. Occasionally, they'd see a flicker of movement, but they couldn't tell if it was Blake or the wind. Almost an hour later, she emerged from the grass in a crouch, her cat ears exposed.

"That was a pain to scout, even for me," she muttered.

"All clear?" Coco asked.

"I think so. But let's move fast, someone could come by and I might not notice. There's a big storage room in the mill filled with a bunch of old tools and supplies. We could hide our cache in plain sight there."

They moved to the mill and tucked the crates behind a stack of lumber in a way that made them look unimportant instead of actively hidden. Reese deconstructed the sledge into its panels and hid them among the tools and machinery and scrap pieces of metal. She transformed her board back into its normal shape.

"Let's go," Coco said. "If we keep up the pace, we can make it to Crescent Hollow by dark."

…

"I spy something green."

"Nora, if you say my hair again—"

"How are you so good at this?"

Reese groaned. "Keeping a low profile sucks. It'd be so much easier if we could've flown to this village."

"Easier until whoever is attacking these villages sees us fly by and plans an ambush for us," Coco said.

"What's stopping them from doing that now?"

"Nothing, but our way somewhat mitigates the risk." She gave Reese an appraising look. "Granted, you don't look like someone who gauges risk well."

Reese glared and rode ahead of Coco, reversing her footing on the hoverboard so she faced Coco while she rode backwards down the trail. She hooked a thumb towards her chest.

"I'm an awesome judge of risk, I just don't let it scare me. I'm a frigging urban daredevil, who never hesitates, never fears, and rises to meet any and all—"

Reese yelped as she rode directly into a tree fallen across the trail, the bough taking her out at her calves. She landed on her back, swallowed by the grass. Coco stopped next to her, holding her hoverboard in one hand.

"I rest my case," she said. She offered Reese her other hand. Reese grimaced and took it, and Coco pulled her to her feet. Nora caught up to them and grinned.

"Is your balance is still off from that RKO after all these months?"

"Nora, for the love of god, shut up!" Reese said.

Nora crossed her arms, flexing her biceps. "Make me."

Reese sputtered, struggling to respond, eventually saying; "I bet you can't stay quieter longer than me."

"Pfft. If I can beat Coco Puff at pushups, I can definitely beat you at anything."

"Did you forget we're supposed to be keeping a low profile?" Coco asked. Before Nora could reply, she smiled and said; "Besides, I bet you can't stay quieter longer than _Blake._ "

Nora narrowed her eyes. "Challenge accepted…" She mimed zipping her lips and continued down the trail. Coco winked at Reese and they followed Nora.

…

They arrived at Crescent Hollow before the sun set but after it sank below the trees. The clearing it sat in was massive, filled with farmland and the occasional outbuilding. About a mile from the treeline, a twelve-foot wall enclosed most of the buildings like an eggshell-colored island in a green lake. The gate was still open and people occasionally walked through, joining the few scattered in the fields or returning to the village proper. Coco looked over her shoulder at the group without stopping and addressed them as casually as she could appear.

"If anyone asks, you can say you're from Vale or Beacon, but don't share why we're really out here with anyone but the folks in charge. We don't know if the people causing trouble have spies. If you're talking to random villagers, tell them we're just your average huntress team out doing average huntress things."

Reese snorted at the alibi, but nodded in agreement. As they drew close to the gate, a few people dashed in and it swung shut. A group of villagers emerged from behind the top of the wall to look down at the four huntresses. The one in the center was young, on the skinny side of average, and sported blue hair that hung past his ears—and bright orange skin. He gave them a shrewd look.

"What brings you to Crescent Hollow?" he asked.

Coco removed her beret and gave a little half-bow. "We're huntresses from Vale doing some routine search and destroy. We came to Crescent Hollow to check up on the village. We'd also like to set up camp here if you're willing to accommodate us. Are you in charge?"

"I might be," he said eyes sparkling, before they turned hard. "Just like you _might_ be Vale huntresses oryou might be scouting for a larger group of bandits. The kingdom's been in disarray and people are desperate for huntsmen to protect their towns and villages again. Who's to say that you're not taking advantage of the situation?"

The villagers atop the wall casually raised an assortment of rifles and bows, pointing them at the four huntresses. Reese saw Blake tense out of the corner of her eye. Coco raised her hands in a placating gesture, never breaking eye-contact with the young man.

"That's a valid concern. We have identification—"

"—that could have been taken from a huntress team by force and altered. We have no practical way of verifying your identity, so unless you can dodge a bullet, you should turn back."

Coco took a step forward. "I—"

There was a loud 'crack!' sound. Dust flew up from the road an inch from Coco's foot and she went rigid. Reese flinched at the shot, holding her hoverboard up like a shield, and Blake crouched, ready to jump back. Nora didn't move, but she held one hand ready to draw her weapon.

"Leave!" the boy shouted.

"Isaac! What's happening?" a voice came from out of sight. A boy around Coco's age, tall and lean, came into view gripping a halberd. He shook some of his shaggy brown hair out of his eyes and looked at the four huntresses. He blinked, then leaned toward the orange-skinned boy, his eyes never leaving them.

"Let 'em in," he said. "They shouldn't be a problem."

The villagers atop the wall didn't lower their weapons, but the tension in the group subsided.

"Not that we don't trust you Royce," the orange-skinned boy said to the newcomer, "But why are you so certain?"

Royce turned to say something to him and gave him a smirk. The orange boy nodded in reply.

"Open the gate," he said.

The villagers lowered their weapons and the gate swung open slowly. Coco sighed, relieved, and led the other three into the village. Inside the walls, they found the two younger men waiting for them. The orange-skinned boy stood barefoot, wearing only a pair of worn jeans. He was still tense, standing with his arms folded, but he no longer appeared hostile. The taller one wore dark jeans, a forest green shirt, and a brown vest with multiple pockets. His halberd's head was a dull grey, reflecting no light, and some additional mechanism sat a foot or two down the haft from the head. He flashed a warm smile to the group.

"Sorry about that," he said. "Things have been weird around here, even by rural standards. If I didn't have good reason to trust you guys, I would have acted just like Isaac."

"You seem a little young to be in charge," Coco said.

He laughed. "I'm not. But I do enough of the important stuff around here that people tend to trust me. I'm Royce Verde; Warden of Crescent Hollow, and this is my friend Isaac." He extended a hand and Coco shook it.

"Coco Adel; Leader of Huntress Team CNBR. Not to be rude, but could you introduce us to your leader? We have a lot to discuss."

"I bet you do," Royce said. He winked. "Follow me."

…

Royce led them to a tea room at the back of a house in the center of the village. They sat on cushions arranged around a low table. A moment later a woman entered, taking a seat at the head of the table. Royce took a seat to her left and Isaac leaned against the wall behind them, eyes fixed on the door.

The woman wasn't particularly short, but she appeared miniature compared to Royce and Isaac. She was older, in her late sixties, and had her gray hair pulled behind her into a neat braid. She gave each of the huntresses a slow appraising look.

"About time someone came," she said. "It's never completely safe this far from the cities, but in the decades I've lived in this region, the last few months have been the most dangerous. Can we expect additional teams?"

"It's just us, at least for now," Coco said.

The woman grunted. "Vale _has_ been busy recently. I suppose I should be thankful for what we get. Even when the kingdom is in good shape, we rarely see huntsmen. I suppose that means Vale is worried about some of the stranger things that have been happening around here."

"We heard three villages were lost," Blake said.

The woman let out a humorless laugh. "Try five. Our regular visitors from two other villages failed to arrive for their monthly grain purchase last week."

Coco blinked in surprise. Reese kneaded a fold of her hoodie with her hands, and Blake and Nora exchanged looks of concern.

"Do you have any idea what happened?" Coco asked.

"We don't," Royce said, stretching. "I offered to check it out, but Marta told me I'm not allowed to stray too far from the village after I discovered Timber Falls became a ghost town." He gave the older woman a wry look.

Reese raised an eyebrow. "You're the one who sent the reports?"

Royce nodded. "Wrote them up and transmitted them out of Razor Ridge; the closest town with any sort of broadcasting capability—and home of one of our no-shows."

"Think you could be our guide?"

"Absolutely not," the woman said.

"Marta—"said Royce.

"Don't start with me Royce! You're one of the few people I'd trust at my side if Crescent Hollow was attacked. We may have taught some of the village how to shoot but all they've done is exterminate the occasional stray grimm that comes near the edge of the fields, and point guns at bandits from the safety of the walls. Their aim will go to hell when too much adrenaline hits and you know it. I can't risk losing someone who's dealt with large groups of threats."

"I'll be with a trained huntress team! If the five of us can't handle a situation, we'll come right back to the village."

"What if you get ambushed? You of all people should know how deadly surprise is."

Royce steepled his fingers in front of his face, gathering his thoughts. When he lowered his hands, there was a solemn look on his face.

"Marta, you said it yourself: the wilds are the most dangerous they've ever been. Crescent Hollow won't stay safe for much longer. We have to take care of whatever is causing the disappearances and attacks before it's impossible to stop. These huntresses are our best chance at handling whatever is out there, and if it's out of their league, we'll call for reinforcements or evacuate the village to Westrun."

" _That_ may be even more dangerous."

"If we don't act soon, we may not have a choice."

Marta looked at Royce for a moment, never breaking eye contact. Then she sighed, leaning back on her hands.

"Fine. Stubborn, like your father."

"I seem to remember people telling him he was stubborn like his mother."

The corner of Marta's mouth curved up. She turned to the huntresses.

"Royce will show you to your quarters while you stay here. You'll go through him for anything else you need."

Coco bowed. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me, just be safe."

…

They followed Royce to a small inn. Inside, they climbed to the second floor, which consisted of a short hallway with a few bedrooms and a common room at the far end. Before Coco could say a word, Blake and Reese exchanged a glance and seized a room, locking the door behind them. Blake leaned back against the door and slid down it to sit on the ground.

"Nora's a great person, but—"

"—she's not a great roommate," Reese finished. She set her pack down and flopped on her bed, her head lolling off the side to look at Blake. "I can't imagine what it was like living with her full time."

Blake opened her mouth, then closed it again and rested her head against the door. Reese narrowed her eyes at the faunus girl.

"What were you going to say?"

Blake looked at Reese. "Nothing."

"Not nothing, you were going to say something. Even in casual conversation you don't waste words, so that was important; spill!"

Blake set her jaw and followed the wood grain in the walls with her eyes. When she looked back and saw Reese still staring at her, she sighed.

"It's just—something's been bothering me since the start of this mission."

"What is it?" Reese asked. "You didn't have to put up with the cryptic bullshit Vale's leadership put us through."

"The team composition doesn't make sense. Nora shouldn't be here."

Reese gave Blake a deadpan stare. "Yeah, a recon mission led by a blitzkrieg fighter and featuring a one-woman demolition team. That makes sense."

Blake shook her head. "Coco's capable of a substantial amount of discretion when needed, and Nora's not as ham-fisted as she looks—even if she did knock me off a bridge." She stood and walked to her bed across from Reese. She sat hunched over, elbows resting on her knees, and chewed at her thumbnail.

"What bothers me is that she left her original team. You didn't know her at Beacon; even under normal circumstances, she's attached to Ren at the hip. Maybe I could see her leaving Jaune for a couple days to grieve with Ren, but for her to outright abandon both of them? That strikes me as profoundly wrong."

Reese blinked. She flipped over and sat up, folding her legs beneath her. "What do you think happened?" she asked.

"I don't know. But Nora doesn't care about much outside of her friends and being a huntress. Back in my White Fang days, we could rarely pay or bribe people like that."

She gave Reese a pointed look. "We'd take a more personal approach."

Reese shivered. When she'd learned that Blake defected from the White Fang, she had dismissed the news without much thought. Plenty of desperate, idealistic, or naïve faunus in Mistral's lower castes had joined for one reason or another; Reese assumed Blake had simply come to her senses after witnessing some of their more extreme activities up close. But the way she spoke implied that her departure from the group hadn't been because of a weak stomach. Reese replayed their tournament match in her head and suddenly felt like she'd gotten off easy.

"Maybe you're reading too much into things," Reese said, hugging herself.

"Possibly, but I doubt it. Either way, I'd watch your back around Coco. She's too smart not to arrive at the same conclusion. She's either in on this, or she's looking the other way because Vale's doing something for her."

Reese thought back to Coco's arguments with their superiors and the 'situation' Ambassador Sylva was apparently resolving for her. She nodded in agreement. Reese sat for a minute, processing their conversation. A thought occurred to her and she leaned towards Blake.

"You were hiding and they got you to come along. How did they pull that off? Your old team members are high-profile or related to strong huntsmen who could protect them, and I don't think you've got any major secrets left after the last few months of news coverage. It's not like they've got a whole lot of leverage on you."

Blake winced, but Reese couldn't tell what part of her statement provoked that reaction. The faunus girl straightened up and gave her a humorless smile.

"Simple. They offered me something I wanted."

There was a moment of silence, then Reese made a rolling 'get-on-with-it' gesture with her hand. "Which is?"

Blake looked like she wanted to tell Reese off, but she relented. "There's someone from the White Fang I need to deal with. Someone strong. The Councilor said that if I help Vale out with this mission they'll give me something that can even the odds the next time I meet my old…colleague."

Blake fell silent and neither of them spoke for a long time.


	5. Chapter 5

CNBR Chapter 5:

Dinner consisted of meat and rice with vegetables and sourdough rolls. Halfway through the meal, Royce unrolled a map on the table and pointed at various spots with his fork.

"Perfection and Thunder Gorge had the kind of grimm activity you see in the aftermath of bandit raids. Timber Falls was the abandoned village, and Razor Ridge and Harvest were the two we lost contact with most recently. Before that happened, they were also the ones with a higher than normal amount of disappearances."

"What counts as normal?" Reese asked, picking at her teeth with a knife.

"Ten to twenty on a bad year between all seven villages. They had about fifteen each in the last month."

"Damn."

"Exactly. So, which village of horror did you ladies want to visit first?"

"What do you think will be the most efficient route?" Coco asked.

Royce traced the map with his finger. "Thunder Gorge and Perfection are close enough to each other that we could hit both in one day, assuming you don't hang around too long at either place. Timber Falls is a bit farther, but we could go there first instead if we left early enough."

"Let's hit closest ones first. Do you think we could get there tonight if we left after dinner?"

"I…would discourage that."

They all turned to Royce to see him scratching the back of his head.

"You didn't seem too worried about scouting earlier," Coco said.

"And I'm mostly okay with it. But Marta and I agree that unless you're in immediate danger, you should be holed up for the night before the sun goes down. If it were just me, and I was close to a populated village, I might travel a little after dark. But that far from Crescent Hollow with four extra people…even if you guys were dead silent, our chances of getting noticed go up. The nocturnal grimm around here are vicious, even in good times. Nowadays, moving after dark is practically a death sentence."

Coco frowned, but nodded. "Fine. Anything else we should know?"

"Not at the moment." Royce pushed his chair back and tipped it on its back legs, resting his feet on the table. "I feel like I should be asking you guys if there's anything I should know. If the village didn't need me and my folks so much I would have loved to apply to Beacon, get some formal training."

A muffled sound came from Blake's right and the table turned to look. Nora held up a finger, swallowed the roll in her mouth and repeated; "Your grandma made it sound like you and your dad had plenty of experience handling trouble."

"My great-grandfather attended one of the academies. The rest of us had it passed down from him; everything from tracking grimm to unlocking aura. It's served me well so far, but I'd like to learn from a more formal source."

Blake sipped her drink and regarded Royce with a thoughtful look. "You haven't fought many humans."

Royce's eyes twinkled. "Mostly sparring. I've helped repel one or two bandit raids, but most of those begin and end much like our meeting at the gate. What gave it away?"

"The walls around the village are old, but there's very little damage to them. You're also far too trusting of well-armed people you've just met."

Royce turned his palms up. "There aren't many people my age in the region, let alone ones who are attractive and tough. I suppose I'm just weak-willed and desperate."

Blake rolled her eyes. Royce shrugged and stood up, popping his neck. "Anyway, we should probably turn in so we can maximize our daylight tomorrow. We've got a lot of ground to cover."

…

They left just before sunrise, cutting through the fields to reach a game trail. The trail took them through thick woods, at one point passing near an old road a few hours from the village. Once, Royce had them ford a narrow stream, eliciting a nod of approval from Blake. Sometime in the early afternoon, they descended a gentle slope and crouched behind some bushes overlooking a small valley clearing.

The side closest to the group was filled with the remnants of the village not far from the treeline. From their vantage point, they could see a couple buildings over the wall. They also saw through the wall in two places where something had broken through. The buildings were similarly damaged with sagging roofs and collapsed walls; some buildings merely burnt foundations, the remaining beams standing like blackened partial skeletons. The few structures that remained habitable were marred with holes of different sizes. In contrast to the destruction, a small field waved gently in the wind on the far side of the village.

"Despite the name, the inhabitants of Perfection made some pretty big mistakes planning the village," Royce said, peering through the vegetation. "With fields only on the one side, they wouldn't see anything approaching until it was right on top of them. Marta told them to clear trees back from the perimeter, but they thought the close treeline would help conceal them. I'm not pleased this happened, but I'm not surprised it did either."

"I don't see anything down there," Coco said. "But just to be safe, let's have Blake scout the fringes."

"Nah, I got this one. I know the area, I can scout it faster than her; even with her faunus senses."

Coco and Blake both stared at Royce. "How the hell did you know that?"

One corner of his mouth turned up. "I'm magic. Watch that window on the third story of the inn for the all-clear; you'll know it when it happens. I'll keep an eye on things from up there. Meet me inside when you're done looking around."

Royce disappeared into the underbrush, leaving the rest of them behind. Some time later, a set of yellowed old curtains drew shut inside the window, and they made their way into Perfection.

Street level was much like what they had seen from the trees, only with more debris. Blake scaled one of the sturdier buildings to peer down at the village while Coco, Nora, and Reese roamed at ground level, picking through the debris and searching the remains of the buildings. After a couple hours, they met in a rubble-filled depression in the center of the village.

"I found jack," Coco said. "What about you Nora?"

Nora kicked at the ground, her arms folded. "Nothing. A few bodies here and there, but nothing unusual about them."

"Reese?"

"Ditto," she said, her board resting on one shoulder. She tapped at what looked like a fat scroll with one hand.

"I didn't pick up any unusual dust residue with my spectrometer. There's some trace amounts, probably from when this place got attacked, but it's conventional stuff you can find at any dust wholesaler, nothing top-shelf. What do you think happened? Our friends hit this place and the chaos attracted the grimm?"

"Might have just been the grimm," Coco said. She pointed around the village.

"There's barely any damage caused by gunfire, and what little there is looks like it was stray rounds from the villagers, not offensive damage. That wouldn't be conclusive on its own, but in the houses that didn't burn I found a couple stashes of lien that weren't hidden too well, some decent weapons, good meat, a couple really nice dresses—I'm not saying bandits would have taken everything, but this was low hanging fruit. No way they attacked a village and left this much nice stuff behind."

Reese frowned. "I guess. Still feels like we're missing something."

"I feel the same way," Coco said.

"That's because we are, and it's not because we haven't checked the inn yet," a voice called out. They looked up to see Blake perched on a roof.

"Places like this don't get serviced by Vale Municipal Water. Did any of you see a well when you were looking around?"

The other three exchanged looks and shrugged.

"No, now that you mention it," said Nora.

"Look where you're standing."

They looked at the ground. On closer inspection, they noticed the rubble sat within a circle of stones embedded in the ground like pavers. They removed the rubble in the circle to uncover some rocks wedged so tight in the well's mouth that even Nora couldn't budge them without Coco and Reese helping her. After pulling two out, there was a crumbling sound and a shift in the ground and the three huntresses leapt back before the remaining rocks collapsed, cracking against the walls of the well as they fell, and ending in a distant splat. They peered down into the blackness.

"Now what?" Reese asked. "That was a lot of work for an empty hole."

Blake leapt down from her perch and walked over to join the others. "It's not empty. I can't see anything, and all I can smell is mud and mildew, but something's down there."

"You sure?" Coco asked. "It's deeper than I thought. Maybe someone wanted to sabotage their water."

Blake shook her head. "It only took you three a few minutes to uncover it. If someone wanted to sabotage the well they'd poison it, not fill it in."

Coco took off her sunglasses and turned them in her hands, thinking. She turned to Reese. "Hey Skate Rat, you have a camera in your bag of tricks?"

"No, but I have these:" Reese drew two long coils of rope from her pack. She took one, tied one end to her spectrometer, and adjusted a few settings on the machine and her scroll before lowering it into the well. After several minutes of feeding out the line, her scroll chirped rapidly.

"Jackpot!" she said, looking at her scroll. "There's hi-test lightning dust down there. You don't stick that in any old gun; let's go down and see what it's powering."

Blake shrugged off her coat and placed Gambol Shroud at her hip. "Okay, where are we going to anchor the other end of my line?"

"Uh-uh, you're not going down there," Coco said. "Since Royce is off being cryptic and weird, I need you on lookout. I'll climb down."

"What if a rock falls and you get stuck?" Nora asked. "I'm lighter and stronger than you. I'll be easier to lift and I can dig myself out if I get pinned."

"If something happens, you can send tools down and I'll dig myself out; you need to be up here to belay me and to hit anything nasty that comes by with your hammer."

"But you're the team leader!"

"Guys—"

"I like to lead from the front. I can do this."

"Guys—"

"Maybe we should find Royce so I can go down," Blake said.

A piercing whistle caused the three of them to turn towards the well, Blake clamping her hands over her ears. Reese stood at the lip of the well, wearing a climbing harness and swaying on the balls of her feet, her hoverboard slung across her back. The second rope led from her waist to a post from an old fence.

"I'm the second lightest and the one with the spectrometer."

Coco tensed and edged towards her. "Reese, you're not going. Sylva will kill me if she finds out I let you take _unnecessary_ risks."

"So we won't tell her!" Reese said, pushing an earpiece into her left ear. "You don't know how to work the equipment and I have extreme sports experience."

"Ironically, you're also a klutz," Blake said.

Reese glared at Blake and jabbed a finger at her. "Normally I'd be insulted, but you've got a point. It's a miracle I haven't dropped this!"

Reese chucked another earpiece at Coco and she instinctually lunged to catch it. Reese seized the opening and leapt back whooping as she rappelled down. The sound of cursing carried down from above as she descended. Her scroll earpiece crackled a few leaps down.

"Get your ass back up here right now!" Coco said.

"Hey, I'm already a good ways down," Reese said, pushing off the wall. "You might as well let me keep going."

"Do you even know how to rappel?"

"I watched some videos on the CCT net, how hard can it be?"

"The CCT went down months ago!"

"And I'm doing fine from memory. Like I said, how hard—?"

Reese's foot slipped and she slammed into the side of the well, slipping several feet before bringing herself to a halt. She spun slowly as she dangled from the rope, wincing at the throbbing pain in her shoulder where it had hit the wall. She took a few deep breaths and steadied herself with one foot.

"You just slipped, didn't you?" Coco asked.

"…just a couple of feet?"

Coco let out an exasperated sigh. She snapped at someone up top to shut up, then spoke to Reese again:

"We're going to have a long chat when this is over, but right now let's compromise and have Nora act as your backup with another rope."

"That sounds reasonable," said Reese, peeking below her.

"Good. Just hang tight a few minutes; Nora's not quite ready."

"Is she okay?"

"She will be. Apparently this is all so funny that she can't stand or breathe."

Reese bit her lip to keep from laughing.

A few minutes later, another rope with a locking carabiner on the end clacked against the wall. Reese hooked it to her harness and gave it two quick tugs. She felt a tug from the other end, then started down again at a slower pace.

The circle of light above shrunk and the well around Reese grew dimmer. She clicked a button on her earpiece and a thin white beam of light shot out from just above her ear, illuminating a small section of the shaft in front of her. The rocks looked clammy and gray, like the stonework was suffering fever chills. It was quiet save for her breathing and the occasional drip of water. The air grew cool fast and Reese shivered. Her feet slid again a few more times, but she never completely lost her footing.

"You see anything?" Coco's voice sounded in her ear.

"Not yet." Reese said. "This well is deeper than I thought."

"You should have thought of that before you leapt in."

"What can I say? I'm impulsive."

"You're also too damn chatty."

"Hey, I answered the question; you continued the conversation."

"Ugh. Just shut up and hold still for a second, Nora needs some water."

Reese looked down during the pause in her descent. She craned her neck, shining her light around, revealing only vague shapes below—and a tiny glimmer of metal in the shadows.

"Looks like Blake and I aren't totally crazy."

Reese felt the rope slowly extend again and she descended. As she neared the bottom, she went to tap her earpiece to adjust the volume and turned the light off instead, plunging the well into darkness. Reese swore as she continued downward, fumbling with the earpiece. She jerked when she unexpectedly reached the bottom and stopped in a sitting position, the mud and a few inches of water at the bottom of the well coating the back of her legs and soaking her shorts.

"You okay down there, Ace?" her earpiece crackled.

"Fine," Reese said. "I accidentally hit the switch for my light." She fumbled in the dark with the earpiece, careful not to terminate the radio link.

"You're suffering user error with something you built?"

"You try multitasking while dangling down a smelly hole then—"

Reese clicked the light on. Her eyes widened and her breath caught in her throat. She shrieked in horror.

A corpse, still covered in some sort of armor, lay partially sunk in the muck. It was mostly decomposed, the eyes and organs gone, but the skeleton was still coated with a patina of rotted flesh. The skull was half-crushed from the impact of falling, giving it a disfigured grin. Reese's breathing came in quick shallow gasps, thin and high-pitched. She screwed her eyes shut, forcing herself to slow her breathing and fighting the urge to vomit.

"Reese, what's going on?" Coco said, her voice alarmed.

"I'm fine," she said a little too loudly. "Just got startled. Give me a minute."

Reese switched off the earpiece before Coco could ask any more questions. Any further mention of the surface, and she'd lose her resolve. She opened her eyes and found where the spectrometer dangled about a meter above the water. With slow, deliberate motions, she stood and grabbed the device, pointing it around the bottom of the well.

Reese found the glint of metal by the body's hip. When she brought the spectrometer towards it, the readings spiked higher. Reaching down, she dragged the body fully out of the water onto a rock, gagging at the fresh wave of decay that assaulted her nose. Still attached to its belt were the shattered remains of a device slightly bigger than a can of beans. She removed it, rinsed it by splashing some water over it, and slipped it into a pouch at her waist.

Fighting the urge to look away, Reese looked over the body again. Nothing struck her as important about the body or armor, but she snapped a couple pictures with her scroll just in case. She tapped the earpiece back on.

"I'm done, take me up."

She felt a tug at the harness and she ascended, the mouth of the well slowly growing as she rose. At the top, Reese seized the lip of the well with both hands, and began to pull herself out. Before she was halfway out, Blake snatched the neck of her hoodie and one wrist, hauling her out onto solid ground. Once Reese was out Blake let go and stepped back, pinching her nose shut. Coco and Nora approached her cautiously, put off by the smell, though not as much as Blake.

"What happened?" Nora asked.

Reese stood up, giving Nora a dismissive shrug. "There was a body. It startled me, but it's no big deal."

Without warning, Reese collapsed on all fours and vomited on the ground. After a few violent retches, she felt Nora's hand on her shoulder. She grasped it and let the red head help her stand, her knees wobbling a bit. She gave the other three a sheepish look.

"I usually do that after I climb something."

…

Reese sat at a long table in the inn's common room dressed in a t-shirt and knee length shorts, her hair dripping. Unearthing and investigating the well hadn't taken too long, but it had delayed them enough that making it to the next town before dark wasn't possible. So they met with Royce at the inn and fortified it for the night while Reese washed off her climb with water from a storage tank at the inn. It had been cold enough that her teeth had chattered even after drying off, but given the circumstances, Reese struggled to remember a better shower.

Afterwards, she disinfected the device she had recovered with rubbing alcohol and started examining it at the table in the common room, prodding it with a small screwdriver. The room looked like a hunting lodge, all log walls, animal skin rugs, and simple furniture that would last for generations. The curtains were drawn everywhere, casting the building into gloom and projecting shadows from the hunting trophies that adorned the walls. The windows also had furniture barricading them, blocking even more light.

A dragging noise came from down a hall, and Royce appeared shoving a bulky armoire with his shoulder. Nora crossed the room from where she had finished another barricade and helped Royce carry the latest piece into place. Coco and Blake ignored both of them in favor of the map they were examining.

"That's the last one," Royce said. "The barricades won't stop anything that really wants to get in, but it'll slow them down and make a racket if they try. We can hole up in one of the interior rooms on the third floor after dinner. They're the most secluded and private place in the entire village."

He dusted his hands off on his pants. "Any progress with the junk you pulled out of the well?"

"No," Reese said, rubbing her forehead with the heel of her hand. "I know it runs on extremely refined lightning dust, but it's not consistent with anything I know that uses such high grade material."

"Pretend this here country boy is an idiot."

Reese sat back and stretched. "Companies like the SDC sell various grades of Dust, right? Every huntsman and huntress knows that dust comes in different strengths, from the regular kind that Blake loads her pistol with to the volatile kind in Nora's grenades. What most people forget, or don't even consider, is that weaponized Dust isn't suitable for more delicate uses like precision electronics. For that, you need to purify it further in the refining stage. That much refining removes some of the destructive potential, so it's less suitable for weaponry; but it makes it act more consistent and stable at a molecular level, so it won't fry the circuits of whatever you're using it to power."

"So it's not a weapon," Blake said.

"It's not, but the fall wrecked it too bad for me to figure it out what it does."

"Which by the way, are we going to discuss why someone sealed a well with a body inside it?" Nora asked, spreading her arms. "No one's touching that goliath in the room?"

Reese stared at the device like she was trying to see through the metal, while Blake and Royce shifted uncomfortably. Coco finally looked up from the map.

"Someone's covering their tracks," she said. "I think the body in the well was with whoever's causing all the trouble. If the dust and the gadget Reese found weren't enough of a clue, the fact that someone tried to hide the well, not just bury it, suggests they didn't want that thing on his belt found. He accidentally falls in and they can't retrieve it, so they settle for concealing it. Plus, that was nice armor in the pictures Reese took, too nice for most bandits. It might not make sense yet, but I think we're onto something."

Nora nodded, then clapped her hands together. "So! When I was helping Royce finish barricading the ground floor, I got a peek into the kitchen. It's mostly canned or dried stuff, but it looks like it'll taste better than Vale's freeze-dried rations. Who feels like stew?"

…

The Atlas drones had stopped attacking, but that just meant the grimm could concentrate on the students and those evacuating them from Beacon. The docks were defensible and the assembled hunters managed to hold them, but the rest of the school was a battleground with no fronts, only chaos. Between the spreading fires and the wind carrying smoke across the grounds, Beacon was engulfed in a gray haze.

Bolin fought alongside Ayana, holding some of the fiercer grimm at bay, while Nadir patched up a huntsman bleeding from his thigh; his usual inept manner replaced with an entranced focus. A beowolf leapt high over the front line towards his patient, jaws gaping, and Nadir dropped a bandage long enough to fire the best shot Reese had ever seen him make, nailing the grimm between the eyes. It fell to the ground disintegrating, and Nadir dropped his rifle like nothing had happened, returning to the wound.

Instead of fighting, Arslan was dragging a massive huntsman with a shaved head by the shoulders towards the docks, hauling him at a pace most would call a moderate jog. Reese and Neon rode around her in a wide circle, intercepting anything that tried to get too close. An ursa lumbered out of a copse of trees, rearing onto its hind legs and they struck it; Reese going high and encasing half its face in ice while Neon went low, freezing both hind paws to the ground. Reese made a sharp u-turn back towards the grimm, leapt, slashed the creature's belly open with her board while it clawed at the ice on its face, and landed to ride away in one smooth motion.

"Don't show off!" Arslan barked.

"I'm being efficient!" Reese shouted, jumping over a fleeing student to deliver a kick to a beowolf's face, staggering the grimm long enough for another huntsmen to finish it off. Through the smoke they saw the docks and the thin perimeter around it a hundred yards ahead, their way blocked with a half-dozen grimm. Neon darted forward, striking several of the monsters and veering off onto a side path, drawing four of them away from the group. Reese accelerated, ramping off a toppled bench, and flew into the air. She split the board into her pair of revolvers and fired a volley, killing one beowolf and wounding a griffon badly enough that it didn't strike back when Arslan shouldered past it. Reese grinned, giving the revolvers a flourish before reforming her board—

A massive weight slammed into Reese from behind, knocking her out of the air and into a grove of trees off the path. She hit the ground and tumbled across it, stopping when she crashed into a tree. She lay still for a moment, unable to do anything but curl up and groan. Her head pounded from the fall and her back screamed from striking the tree. Aura was the only thing that kept her from breaking her spine, and even then she knew she'd find bruises across her body the next morning—if she made it that far.

After a few moments, she looked up and saw her hoverboard lying a few yards away. She tried to stand and let out a cry when she put weight on her right leg, collapsing to the ground. She began crawling towards it, exhaling in short pained breaths. She had crossed halfway to the board when something big crashed down behind her.

Reese turned to see a griffon, staring at her with its head cocked to one side. Its beak was large enough to encircle her torso. Her gaze fell to its talons and she saw shreds of fabric from her clothes impaled on its claws. Reese flipped back over and crawled to her weapon as fast as she could, her breathing shallow and panicked.

She was an arm's length away when she felt the beast land on her back, pinning her in place. She shrieked, covering her head as the beast tore at her arms and shoulders, rapidly depleting her aura.

"I'm not here, this isn't happening; I'm not here, this isn't happening," she said to herself over and over, her voice breaking. Her scroll blared a warning about low aura levels, but it was drowned out by the griffon's cries mixing with hers.

A roar cut through all the noise and she felt the griffon's weight leave her shoulders. She turned onto her back in time to see Arslan standing between her and the griffon. It swiped its talons at her and she leapt back, entangling its foot with her rope dart. She yanked it, making the creature tumble off balance, and leapt onto its shoulders, wrapping her arms around its neck. She made a quick jerking motion, and the grimm's neck snapped with a loud 'CRACK'. She stood as the creature went limp and started to smoke, turning towards Reese.

"I told you," she said, wiping her brow. "Don't show—"

A beowolf leapt from the bushes and locked its jaws over Arslan's shoulder and collarbone, pinning her right arm and bringing her to her knees. She screamed in pain and punched it in the snout with her left fist, but it just clamped down tighter. She dug her fingers into its lower jaw and tried to pry it loose.

"Shoot it! Reese, shoot it!" she said, her voice strained with pain and exertion. Reese stared at the monster, frozen in shock. She tried to will herself to crawl the last few feet to her weapon, but her body wouldn't respond. She could only stare in horror as she watched one of the strongest huntresses she knew slowly succumb to the grimm's powerful jaws.

"Dammit," Arslan said. She closed her eyes and let go of the beowolf's jaw, drawing her free arm back. She concentrated and her expression grew calm, her composure only faltering for a moment when the beowolf bent her arm at an extreme angle and she flinched in pain. Her face grew tight and she let out a short piercing shout as she drove the heel of her free palm into the beowolf's left eye. Half its head exploded and the grimm fell over, dead.

Arslan stood. Her body was covered with soot and dirt, and her robe and hair were disheveled. Aura had prevented the grimm from drawing blood, but simple physics had dislocated her arm when they had grappled, and it bounced off her side like the end of her sash. Her face was near tears, twisted into a grimace of pain, but she was alive. She met Reese's eyes and anger, then something more subtle, flicked across her face before determination set in her features. She gathered their weapons, then took a knee next to Reese.

"A-arslan, I'm—"

"Can you move?"

Reese looked at her right leg. "I can't put weight on it."

Arslan grunted and shoved her good shoulder under Reese's arm, then stood, supporting her.

"Let's go."

The two of them stumbled through the grounds in a three-legged hobble. Reese never fainted, but time passed in a haze. She was vaguely aware of staggering out of the trees towards the docks, of boarding a shuttle, of a medic examining her and bandaging some cuts on her forearms and shoulders from when her aura had thinned. When she felt lucid again she looked around the shuttle and saw the aftermath.

Most of the passengers had actually made out fairly well. Through his usual sheer dumb luck, Sun Wukong had made it out without a scratch, and his best friend had somehow shared that good fortune. The massive boy Arslan had saved was pressing a hand to a bandaged section of his upper body and flinching at the pain, and in one corner behind the seats a small dog was whining at a group of medics gathered around a stretcher, but everyone else had escaped with relatively minor injuries. Reese failed to find Arslan and felt her heart jump. She looked around a couple more times before spotting Bolin's staff resting against a wall not far from the cluster of medics.

Reese shot up from her seat, cursed when she put weight on her bad leg, then began hopping on one foot, supporting herself by grabbing the seat backs as she hopped towards the back of the craft. She came around the back row of seats and found her teammates crouched around Arslan, helping her to stand from where she had laid on the floor. Her arm was bandaged, hanging in a sling, and she stumbled like she was drunk.

"Oh god," Reese said.

"She'll be fine," Nadir said. "She's a little out of it from the painkillers, but she'll be fighting again soon enough."

Reese sighed, but instead of fading into relief, the bright panicked tension in her gut transformed into a heavy congested tension in her chest and head. She looked at Arslan. Her leader tried to present a stoic front, but even with the medicine, she still grit her teeth in pain. Reese felt her eyes begin to water.

"If I hadn't frozen this wouldn't have happened," she said, her voice breaking. "If I had acted faster, if I hadn't opened myself up to an attack like that, you wouldn't have gotten hurt. I wouldn't have almost gotten us killed. Arslan, I am so—"

Arslan pulled Reese into a hug with her good arm. Reese buried her face in Arslan's shoulder and sobbed, trembling. Arslan said nothing, but rubbed Reese's back to comfort her. After a few minutes, she felt Reese calming down, and drew back slightly.

"It's okay Reese. I forgive you."

Reese drew back and looked up at Arslan with a mixture of disbelief and gratitude. Arslan nodded, reassuring.

Then she seized the back of Reese's head by the hair and held her off the ground.

"But that doesn't mean there won't be consequences."

She hurled Reese back and Reese fell, sailing out a door that had been closed seconds ago, tumbling down from the aircraft through the night sky, her screams swallowed by the wind. She landed with a splash and flailed, struggling to stay afloat with her bad leg. She swam into something hard and slick and followed it up until she surfaced with a gasp, clinging onto the obstacle by her fingertips. She couldn't see what she was holding onto in the blackness, but as she moved along it, she felt multiple rectangular sections and noticed a gentle curve that bent inwards. Looking up, she saw a circle-shaped slice of the starry night sky.

Her heart stopped. She was back in the well.

From the darkness behind her, she heard something slide into the water. She turned to look and saw nothing but blackness. Then she felt the water in front of her ripple and a pair of red-orange eyes the size of softballs rose out of the water. A blast of hot, humid breath bathed her in a sticky, rotten smell, and Reese screamed.

…

Reese jolted awake, breathing hard. She didn't shout, but her heart felt like someone had stabbed it with a syringe of caffeine, and she was soaked in sweat. Her hands bunched up fistfuls of sheets and she lay curled and rigid beneath the comforter, focusing on her breathing. Over what felt like hours, she managed to wrestle her pulse back under control and relaxed.

"Everything okay Reese?"

She jumped again, then inwardly cursed. _Of course I woke up during her shift,_ Reese thought.

Reese sat up and looked across the room. The room they had chosen had no windows so they were able to keep a small lantern going for whoever had watch. Blake sat at the table with the lantern on it, looking up from her book at Reese. Royce sat across from her, drawing a whetstone over his halberd blade. He looked at Reese with one eyebrow raised, echoing Blake's question. Reese looked from one to the other, gauging her reply, then sighed.

"I just had a bad dream. Pretty lame, huh?" She gave them a wan smile.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Royce asked, lengthening the question with a tentative drawl.

"No, I think I just had a weird reaction to one of those cans we took from the kitchen. Bad meat or something."

Neither of them looked convinced, but they nodded, playing along. Blake stood, drew something from a pouch on her belt, crossed the room, and placed it in Reese's palm. It was the size and shape of a chewy candy, and spinach-colored.

"Old field remedy for 'indigestion'. It'll help you sleep it off. Take it with some water though, it tastes disgusting."

Reese looked up at her. "But I'm the next in the watch rotation. I might as well stay awake."

"You sure about that? I could've sworn we traded shifts, didn't we Royce?"

"You absolutely did," he said. "I seem to recall Reese coming up with a new theory about that box she found and offering to swap shifts so she could see if she was right while the idea was fresh in her mind."

His eyes twinkled at Reese. "Go on. It'll be our little secret."

Reese looked between Blake and Royce, frowning. Then she downed the pastille in her hand, grimacing at the taste; a cross between asparagus and soap. She lay down, kneading the comforter with her fingers in guilt at the thought of Blake and Royce getting her out of watch duty. Then she slept, in calm peaceful darkness.


	6. Chapter 6

Coco looked at her watch. It was half past two, but it was impossible to tell from looking at the sky. Thick clouds loomed overhead, throwing the world into grayscale. The rain came down in fat cold drops, soaking Razor Ridge and cutting visibility to fifty feet.

She looked into the rain from the general store's covered porch. The town showed no signs of attack: The buildings remained intact, generators appeared in working order, and the general store's shelves held ample supplies. Rain washed away any human footsteps that may have marked the streets but the ground wasn't gouged with grimm tracks either. Inside and outside, there wasn't a single sign of struggle or drop of blood.

But the complete absence of people cast a sinister air over the most mundane things. Every door they encountered was unlocked, most hanging open to the elements. Dinners at set tables lay untouched, save for insects buzzing around the now-spoiled food. In one house's kitchen, a set of tools was laid out on the floor in front of an opened sink cabinet, in preparation to fix a leaky pipe. The aftermath of violence was difficult to look at, trauma-inducing at times, but such brutality was concrete, unambiguous. The uncertainty they encountered in Razor Ridge stirred the imagination in subtle, powerful ways; nurturing a dread that was in some ways worse than seeing destruction and gore.

Coco shivered. She drew out her scroll from beneath her poncho, flicked through the pictures until she found the one she wanted, and gazed at the screen. Her hand hung poised over the top of the display, ready to swipe down and pull up the contact list, before she lowered it, pushing the thought out of her mind. Even if long-range communications worked, making a call would have been a low for tactical stupidity.

"Are you ever going to tell me who the lucky man is? Or lady, I don't judge."

Coco jumped back, startled. Nora dangled by her fingers from the canopy like a monkey, giving Coco an inquisitive look. Coco relaxed and holstered her scroll.

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Coco said.

"Alright, I'll stop being nosy," said Nora. She popped her hips towards Coco and swung forward, landing underneath the canopy. She leaned on the porch's railing and stared into the storm. Coco grit her teeth, but said nothing, assuming a similar position. A few minutes passed like that, with no sound but the falling rain and the occasional rumble of thunder high above the mountains.

"So did _you_ find anything?" Nora asked.

Coco suppressed a sigh. "No. It's like the town's a life-sized model; exactly like the report on Timber Falls. I found zero evidence of looting."

"Maybe they evacuated?"

"Possible, but I doubt it. Unlike the last two villages, there's only one way in, and we didn't see any signs of grimm activity heavy enough to make people run. Combine that with the fact that this village is built into a high cliff like an early Mistral settlement, and evacuation makes less sense. You could hold out here for a while so long as a flock of airborne grimm didn't attack."

Coco rubbed the heel of her palm against her forehead. "I'm guessing you had similar luck?"

"Pretty much. Lots of suspicious absences with no clues why. The only mystery I have a chance of solving is your reaction to me trying to peek at your scroll."

Coco scowled at Nora. "I do not need your usual antics right now. I thought you understood that this isn't a seek-and-destroy mission with your friends, but maybe I was wrong."

"I understand," said Nora. "But you're really tense right now; everyone is. I thought teasing you might help you ease up."

Coco seized Nora by the shoulders. Nora's eyebrows rose, but she didn't flinch.

"Have we been looking at the same villages the past few days? Because nothing I've seen since we've left Crescent Hollow screams 'ease up' to me. Meanwhile, you seem to be operating on a different planet where nothing serious ever happens."

"There's a difference between taking things seriously and stressing out over them," Nora replied, raising her hands in a mollifying gesture.

Coco let out a short bark of laughter. "Acting professional is stressing out over something? If that's how you see things I'm surprised you didn't lose more of your team at Beacon."

Before she could say anything else, Coco felt a crushing pain around her wrists. With slow deliberate motions, Nora pried Coco's hands from her shoulders and lowered them to the taller girl's waist. She gave them a quick squeeze, sending another spike of pain through them, then let go and folded her arms in front of her, glaring at Coco. Coco managed to suppress her wince of pain and stand her ground, but every nerve in her body screamed at her to move back from Nora.

"Choose your next words _carefully_ ," Nora said, her voice quiet.

The two of them stood there for a moment, eyes locked and poised to fight, but before either of them could escalate the confrontation, a humming noise came out of the rain. They turned to see Reese hop off her board and scale the steps to the covered porch. She drew her hood down, reached behind her neck to wring the water out of it, then grabbed her hair and repeated the motion.

"So we sort of found something," she said. "Royce said—"

She paused and looked back and forth between the two huntresses. "Did I interrupt something?

"No," they both replied.

Reese looked skeptical, but nodded.

"So we checked out the hut where they keep the village's radio," Reese said. "It's gone. There's nothing in there except a table and a couple of chairs. After we saw that, Royce said he wanted to check out the antenna."

"Which is where?" Coco asked.

Reese made a gesture for them to follow, pulled her hood back up, and stepped back out into the rain, leading them to the North end of the village. The villagers had carved a series of narrow switchbacks into that section of the cliff face, and they climbed them, rising above the village. When the village below looked like a collection of anthills they reached the summit; their feet too numb from the rain and cold to ache. The area was mostly flat, with small boulders scattered around. Blake stood watch at the end of the path while Royce examined the remnants of the antenna.

The group slowly approached where Royce crouched at the tower's former base. When it had stood upright, it had been a tall, narrow lattice of metal, supported by steel cables anchored to the stone. Now it laid across the ground, warped from the fall and twisted apart at a few places along its length. The bottom foot or so of the three main columns jutted out of cement that had secured them to the rock. After that they terminated in melted steel coated with a black goo that gave off a sour smell. Reese produced a screwdriver and extended it towards the goo.

Royce snatched her wrist. "Don't do that if you want to use it again," he said, his voice quiet.

Reese withdrew her arm. "What is it?"

"Komodo venom," he said. "Unpleasant local grimm. Don't get bit if we run into one; in addition to being acidic, their venom stops blood clotting and degenerates organs. If the melting doesn't kill you, the bleeding from your eyes probably will."

Reese made a face and scooted back.

"Don't tell me we're adding smart grimm to the list of creepy things in the forests," Coco said.

"No," Royce said. "They're cunning, but they're not intelligent enough to target an antenna. Some bandits keep smaller ones around to milk them for their venom. It's useful for melting through locks, prison bars; that sort of thing. Whoever's doing this may not operate like any bandit I've ever seen, but they've been in the wilds long enough to learn some local tricks."

"Looks like our friends are getting sloppy."

"More like they're taking calculated risks," Royce said, standing up. "When the antenna stood, you could see it from the village below when the weather's clear. If you guys had come looking in this storm without a guide, you might not have thought to check up here. If you came on a clear day and the antenna was still standing, you might have been able to jury-rig it to work. Maintaining secrecy is pointless if the people you're attacking can call for help."

Coco nodded. "Did anyone find anything else?"

"Nope," Reese said, tapping her scroll. "Blake came up empty-handed, and I didn't find anything in the buildings with the spectrometer. The rain would have washed away anything that might have been outside."

"Royce, how fast can we get to Harvest?" Coco asked.

Royce looked at his watch, then the sky.

"Not until tomorrow, but there's a cabin one of the locals let me stay in a couple times halfway there. If we go now, we can make it just before sundown."

…

By the time they reached the bottom of the cliffs, the rain had darkened the thicker patches of forest almost black as a cave. They traveled along the edge of a wooded valley between the mountains and Harvest as the sun sank, moving into a section of woods that was thinner, but not completely absent of foliage. As they came across a few fallen trees, Blake and Royce drew to a halt simultaneously; their faces contorted in similar looks of disgust and caution.

Nora opened her mouth to ask why they had stopped, when they smelled it: A sour fetid stench, like a dead cat mixed with industrial chemicals hit them and they began to cough. Blake wrapped a scarf over her face to filter the air and braced herself against a tree. Royce strapped a small round shield to his leading forearm and raised his halberd.

"It's one of those grimm I told you about earlier. The good news is that they usually hunt alone. The bad news is that this one's full grown judging by the trees; smaller than a taijitu, but bigger than an ursa."

"I think I have something for that," Nora said, unshouldering her pack.

"No!" Coco said. "Melee and small arms only; the rain won't cover the sound of heavy weapons."

Royce looked like he wanted to side with Nora, but he nodded in agreement. Nora glowered, but put away her pack and transformed _Magnhild_ into its hammer form. Royce turned to face the group.

"Komodo are strong, and faster than they look, but they're not real nimble. There's a clearing nearby; if we get there we can run circles around it."

"Hey, here's a wild idea, why don't we just avoid the bitey acid monster entirely?" said Reese, her face pale.

"That would be ideal, but if we got this close to it, it probably knows—"

There was a crash from Royce's left, and he flung himself backwards out of the path of a massive, lizard-like grimm. Blake leapt onto its back, landed a few strikes on it, and ran down its body, past its tail into the woods. The grimm took the bait and whirled after Blake, temporarily leaving the path. Coco, Nora, and Reese took the opportunity to run past it after Royce, who had broken into a sprint down the trail. Behind them, they heard the Komodo roar and the crashing of falling trees.

Up ahead, the path opened up into a small clearing, turned to slick mud by the pouring rain. Reese hopped onto her hoverboard with a running start, zipping ahead of the others and arcing around back when she neared Royce's position near the center. Nora and Coco had gotten about fifteen yards from the trees when the grimm crashed through after them, and Reese got her first good look at the creature.

It had thick beaded skin, a head almost big enough to swallow a person whole, and its feet ended in long obsidian claws. Its shoulders spanned the length of a car, and its muscular tail doubled the length of its body. Its body displayed none of a grimm's distinctive bone plating, but when it bared its teeth they were the same unnatural white.

As it charged after Coco and Nora, it swiped at them with its claws. It sent Nora flying to one side and knocked Coco to the ground. Coco rolled onto her back in time for it to pin her leg into the mud. The beast hissed and lunged down at her, but before it could bite her Coco drove the boot heel of her free leg into the creature's jaw and its head was enveloped in a flash of blue as her boot gun fired. It tossed its head back, shaking it to try to dislodge the ice that had encased its jaws, forgetting Coco and allowing her to scramble away.

Gunfire cracked in a measured cadence and the Komodo shook, irritated, but not seriously harmed. Royce had reversed his halberd and turned it into a long rifle, the halberd's head forming the buttstock, and the spike atop the head folding to one side to form the bolt. He cycled the action and fired again as the creature swung its head into the ground, shattering the ice holding its jaws shut. It roared and charged towards him, claws digging into the mud.

Reese withdrew while Royce converted his rifle back to a halberd. He held his ground as the Komodo bore down on him, leaping back from its final lunge at the last second. Its momentum spent, the creature began a slower approach, slashing its claws at him instead of trying to charge.

Royce managed to parry the attacks with his halberd's blade or deflect them with the small shield strapped to his forward forearm. Occasionally he speared the grimm in the shoulder or foot with the halberd's spike, but he was ceding ground rapidly. He slowly stepped backward until he came up against a thick tree at the opposite edge of the clearing. The creature's tongue flicked and it lurched forward. Royce batted away the claw swipe, but the parry left him wide open to the creature's gaping jaws.

Blake burst from the trees, shoving Royce aside and the creature seized her, her head and shins protruding from either side of its mouth. The grimm shook its head, snapping her neck and rending her flesh with its teeth. It let out a satisfied growl, and chomped down again, making a loud cracking sound that made Royce's skin crawl.

Then there was a burst of flame as the shadow clone exploded, and the Komodo reared back, hissing in pain, its cries growing angrier as the real Blake pounced on its neck and hacked at it like an ax murderer. It writhed and coiled as it tried to toss her off, throwing off her strikes so they only glanced off its hide. She slipped on its slick skin, recovered, and retreated down the creature's body, but this time the beast was ready. It popped its hindquarters up, sending her into the air high enough to swat her across the clearing with its tail. She struck a tree not far from Coco and Reese, and slid down the trunk into the mud.

"My guns didn't even scratch that thing," Reese said, shaking a little. She watched Royce and Nora double-team the monster, keeping it backed against the trees, but just barely.

"I am seriously regretting my lack of melee reach right now," Coco said, rummaging in her pack. "If my minigun wouldn't make a racket, I'd just unload on the bastard."

"What should I do?"

"If you can't hurt it, distract it."

"Like Blake?" Reese looked over at Blake. She was barely moving, sprawled on her side.

"That's the general idea."

"What are you going to do?"

Coco lit a flare and held it in her left hand, and dangled her gun in its purse form from her right.

"Something I'd yell at anyone else for trying."

Coco shouted and charged forward, and a moment later Reese did the same, darting ahead of Coco as she rode.

Nora struck the creature's shoulder with her hammer. It growled in pain, but didn't fall, whirling on the girl and batting her away. Reese swerved out of Nora's path as she flew through the air and angled towards the grimm's head. Just before Reese entered the reach of its jaws, she slid into an abrupt stop and sent a plume of mud into its eyes with the force from her board's hover field, temporarily blinding it. It backhanded her the way she had come as it thrashed in frustration, and Coco leapt in and hammered its head to the ground with her bag. It roared as it picked itself back up and Coco roared back, waving the flare in its face. It retreated, snapping its jaws at the flare. When it grew bolder and struck back, Coco swung her bag into its attacks, redirecting the blows.

Coco felt the flare begin to sputter and tossed it to one side. The Komodo swung its head after it, but before it could turn back to Coco, she struck its head hard enough to stagger it, then moved in to deliver a kick with her other boot. The blow rolled the creature onto its side in a burst of force from a gravity dust cartridge and it lay stunned for a moment. Royce and Nora leapt in, striking it in the belly. Nora's hammer bounced off it, but Royce's halberd bit into the flesh. He tugged at it for a second, straining, but it stayed fixed in place. He turned white.

"Oh crap."

The Komodo kicked, sending Royce and his halberd tumbling across the clearing. The puny gouge Royce had left was so shallow it didn't bleed. The creature twisted upright and knocked Nora away with a flick of its tail. It began to slither towards Coco, slow and inexorable. She lit another flare, but the small flame no longer frightened the grimm and it continued to advance. She leapt back as it struck with its claws, dodging once, twice; but the third strike went low, sending a wave of mud crashing into Coco like a load of wet cement and she went down hard.

She raised her head, disoriented, and looked about. _Belle Mort_ was nowhere to be found. The Komodo advanced, locking its gaze on hers with impassive eyes. The stench of rotten meat and sulfur flowed from its mouth and made Coco's eyes water. At the edge of her perception, she heard someone screaming at her to move. She tried to force herself to run, to start swinging, to do something, but everything felt sluggish and delayed, like she was moving underwater. The grimm's jaws yawned wide.

A pair of hollow thumps sounded in rapid succession, followed by two high-pitched shrieks reminiscent of roman candles, but much louder. Two hot-white, vaguely pointed lights streaked through the air and buried themselves in the Komodo's side, leaving a pair of holes the size of soccer balls in its flesh, and making it flinch and hiss in pain. A moment later a pair of massive explosions blew away most of the monster's torso, rocking the forest with its force, making Coco's ears ring as they echoed into the night. Coco looked up to see the Komodo laying on its side, howling in pain. Most of its body was gone, its hindquarters connected to its shoulders only by a cracked spine and a few partial ribs.

Distracted by its injury, it didn't notice Nora approach. She fired a third grenade a yard from the grimm's head, sending a cluster of thick flechettes into its skull. It slumped and began to smoke. She turned to look at Coco and gave her a flat look.

"Oops," she said in monotone, then walked off towards Blake. Coco sat in silence, stewing in fury, relief, and the waning dregs of fear. The rain fell harder, stinging as it hit exposed skin.

…

Blake woke to a low muffled rumble, like surf crashing on a distant beach. Looking up, she saw a wood ceiling in a dim room. She lay on the ground atop a thick mattress. Her damp clothes clung to her skin, making her cringe, but someone had also draped several thick towels over her, staving off some of the cold. Looking around she saw she was in a room with stone walls, filled with wooden crates, cots, and a few floor mats like hers. Against one wall, a ladder reached towards the ceiling. A soft glow came from behind a stack of crates. Blake let out a tiny groan and sat up, propping herself up with her forearms.

Someone moved behind the crates, and Reese emerged from the lit area, carrying a water bottle. She crouched next to Blake and held it out to her. Blake took it and drank in long, steady pulls.

"Man, you really got your bell rung," she said, a relieved chuckle in her voice.

Blake put the bottle down. "What happened after I hit the tree?"

"Nora used some of my special grenades to kill that thing. Then she carried you until we got to the cabin Royce told us about. We're staying in this little basement safe room in case anything comes sniffing around. Royce said the owner built it to withstand a group of ursae; dug it right out of the bedrock."

"That about matches up with the explosions I heard." She paused and blinked at her towel-covered feet.

"Where are my boots?"

"Blame Royce for that," said Reese. "He was being weird; he wouldn't let any of us track mud inside for some reason. The rain washed most of it off of us, but it was still thick on everyone's shoes. He also mopped all the water up before we came down here. Dude's priorities are out of whack."

Blake's head began to throb and she clutched her temples, her fingers brushing a bandage. "He's certainly strange."

"We're all a little off after that fight. Nora's been sullen and quiet, and every time Coco looks at Nora, she makes this face like she wants to tear her throat out, but knows she can't get away with it. I know Nora woke up everything in the valley when she killed that grimm, but Coco almost died. There wasn't another option."

"There's always another option," a voice said. Coco emerged from the shadows and joined the two huntresses. "But I wouldn't expect someone I found cowering behind a fallen tree to make robust strategic decisions."

"I couldn't scratch that thing," Reese said, her eyes hard.

"You couldn't," she agreed. "But did you shoot it anyway to distract it? Did you try to help Royce or Nora? Or move Blake to a safer location?"

Reese fell silent and bowed her head.

"In an ideal world, I'd replace you right now and do everything in my power to revoke your status as a huntress. But I can't. So until we get back to Vale, try to not get anyone killed."

Coco stretched, popping her neck. "Your shift's over; beat it."

Reese shuffled off into the gloom, her shoulders sagging. Blake pursed her lips at the exchange, but said nothing. When Reese was gone, Coco turned her attention to Blake.

"So, how are you holding up?"

"Did I vomit at any point?" Blake asked.

"No."

"Then I'm _probably_ not concussed."

Coco made a small, amused sound. "Good, we'll need you extra vigilant tomorrow."

"You think we got spotted?"

"I don't know. We left pretty fast once that thing was dead, but it's still a possibility. Anything out there will be on high alert tomorrow after the noise we made."

Blake nodded. "Are we still going to Harvest?"

"It'll be an abbreviated stop after last night's fun, but we're going."

"You think we'll find any information or survivors?"

Coco stood silent for a moment, her arms folded. Then she sighed, her whole body drooping with fatigue.

"It is my hope, not my belief, that we find something."

Blake lay down, closing her eyes. "I don't give hope much weight."

"Neither do I."

…

An hour before sunrise the next morning Royce unbarred the metal trapdoor and let it swing down, revealing a panel of wood. He pushed that up and over like a manhole lid and climbed through, exiting into the cabin above.

"Coco, I thought about our conversation last night," Blake said, pulling on her boots.

"What about it?"

"Playing cat and mouse is only a smart play for the cat. If we've announced our presence, Harvest would be an effective place to lay a trap. You said—"

"—I know what I said." Her voice was low and even. "But I can't skip Harvest in good conscience if there's even a small chance there's someone we could help. Rescue might not be a primary mission objective, but it is the purest form of the huntress job description. Besides, even if someone unfriendly did hear us, they sure as hell haven't found us yet."

"How can you be so sure?"

"I can think of one reason," Royce's voice called down from above.

Blake and Coco exchanged looks, then climbed the ladder out into a modest one-room cabin. Royce stood by the trapdoor, concern etched into his features. The two huntresses followed his gaze. Then they froze.

A series of muddy footprints trailed away from the front door and through the cabin, meandering along the walls and around several pieces of furniture. There were at least two sets, both showing tread patterns that didn't match any of the group's shoes. One pair had left a set of prints directly on top of the wood panel that concealed the trapdoor.

Royce tried to grin, but the expression was stiff and pale. "Looks like being neat houseguests last night paid off for us."


	7. Chapter 7

"I don't think they found us," Royce said. "They checked the cabin because it looked like a possible shelter, not because they knew we were here." All five of them had emerged from the cabin's hidden basement and were examining the tracks covering the floor. Royce paced, his eyes fixed on the muddy bootprints.

"The rain washed away the tracks outside, and I made sure there wouldn't be any trace of us inside. If they knew we were down there, they could have buried us if they had explosives, or suffocated us with smoke. We wouldn't be having this conversation."

"They could be spying on us," Reese said. "They could be waiting out there right now, listening."

Blake shook her head. "That doesn't track. Like Royce said, if they had known we were here they would have tried to kill us or take us prisoner. Watching and waiting doesn't make sense. Even if they were observing us, they wouldn't leave clues that they had been here. We got very lucky last night."

"So what do we do now?"

"We stick to the plan," said Coco, hefting _Belle Mort_. "We're moving out in five minutes; we don't want to burn what little overcast daylight we have if we're going to push to Harvest."

"Seriously?" Reese asked. "A bunch of ghost ninjas came within inches of discovering our hiding spot and murdering us in our sleep, and your impulse is to track them down?"

"Don't tell me you're scared of bandits too," Coco said.

"I'm not afraid of a bunch of thugs, but I've spent enough time in Mistral's back alleys to know a bad situation when I see one," Reese said, fire in her voice. "Maybe they don't know exactly where we are, but if they know we're out here and they're half as smart as you and Blake think they are, I'll bet you a million lien they've got a trap waiting for us in Harvest."

"It's not ideal, but if we're expecting a trap we can turn that against them. We can't just walk away because a situation is dangerous; there could be people that need our help. Even if there aren't, we could still find something that helps explain what's happening out here."

Reese folded her arms and leaned back against a wall. "Even if you know a trap is there, walking into it is stupid if you have another option. I vote we head back to Crescent Hollow, fortify the village, and come back with reinforcements from Vale."

"This _isn't_ a democracy," Coco said clenching her fists. "We're going to Harvest."

"Actually, I'm with Reese on this one," Blake said. She moved to stand next to Reese, who looked at her in surprise before flashing her a grateful smile.

"These people clearly know the terrain. Even if they aren't affiliated with the White Fang they've adopted their guerilla tactics. On top of that, we lost the element of surprise last night. It would be trivial for them to ambush us under present conditions."

Blake fixed Coco with a predator's impassive stare. "I've been in their position enough times to know."

Coco looked from Reese to Blake, glaring. "Unbelievable. This is exactly why I wanted my old team for this mission. I can't trust any of—"

"I say we do it," Nora said. Everyone turned to stare at her. She responded with a shrug.

"If they want to be a bunch of sneaky snakes, I say we let 'em. We'll go to Harvest, and if they try to jump us we'll blow them to bits!"

Coco's eyebrows rose, then she leered at Blake and Reese.

"Looks like it's a tie. But since I'm the team leader, I think my vote gets a little more weight than yours. So I guess—"

"I'm sorry, do I not get a vote?"

They all turned to look at Royce. He shrugged at Coco, somehow managing to make the gesture incredibly patronizing.

"I mean it's not like I've been your guide for the past several days or anything like that."

Coco pursed her lips at Royce, then said, "You're not part of the team. You don't really get a say."

"Counterpoint: I'm not part of the team, so you can't boss me around."

Coco made an exasperated sound, but didn't dispute the rebuttal. Royce gave her a smug look, then softened and walked over to her.

"Coco, you and your team are really strong, really awesome, really tough huntresses. You don't need me in a fight, and you didn't need me to show you around; I just helped move things along faster. That said, it wouldn't sit right with me to abandon the only people fighting for the folks who live out here. If y'all decide to go to Harvest I'll lead the way, but I think we should head back to Crescent Hollow. If we get caught or killed out here, Isaac and Marta will be the only people left I'd trust to lead the village against an attack. They could put up a fight for a bit, but Isaac's not as good as any of us, and Marta doesn't have a lot of stamina anymore, even if she's got the resolve of a statue. If we fall, the village will too."

"You're willing to abandon another village like that?" Coco asked.

For the first time since meeting the huntresses, Royce looked tired. "You've all said how stealthy and capable our mysterious friends are. I don't like the idea of abandoning Harvest either, but I'd rather help the people I know we can protect instead of risking their safety because there's a small chance another village might have some survivors."

Coco met Royce's eyes. "That's detestable and cowardly." She sighed, her shoulders slumping. "But, it is the smart play."

Royce took her hand and squeezed it. "Thank you," he said, his voice quiet.

Coco nodded, then shouldered her pack. "How fast can we get back?"

…

Two days later they arrived at Crescent Hollow in the afternoon and told Marta the results of their scouting.

"So we're the last ones," she said. "When do you think they'll attack Crescent Hollow?"

"It could be a few days from now, it could be tonight" Blake said. "I think we made it back without anyone following us, but if I were in their position I'd move on the village if there was even the smallest chance someone would get back here in time to warn you."

Marta nodded. "How do you want proceed?"

"Tell us everything about your defenses and the surrounding area," Coco said. "Institute a twenty-four hour watch, and introduce us to the villagers so they'll know to listen to our commands when the attack comes. We'll help reinforce the defenses while the sun's up. Once that's done, Nora and I will take turns standing watch with the active guard shift."

"What about me and Blake?" Reese asked.

"You need to rig something to boost our scroll signal enough to call for reinforcements. I think we've seen enough to justify some extra muscle. Blake's on standby; she needs to rest after our run back here."

"No, I should be leading the watch," said Blake. "I'm your best set of eyes and ears, and I'm better at fighting stealthy opponents than all of you. Besides, I feel fine; I'm not any worse off than the rest of the team."

Coco regarded her statement in silence for a moment. Then she gave Blake a gentle prod in the ribs where she'd struck the tree, light as a lover's caress. Blake recoiled like she'd been stabbed, and cried out in pain.

"I know you thought no one saw you nursing your side on the way back, but I noticed," Coco said. "You've done more than your share of the work Blake; don't worry about taking some time to let your Aura heal you up. I think we'll survive a night without you on watch."

"You couldn't have just ordered me to rest?" Blake asked, clutching her ribs.

"Team RWBY consisted of the most stubborn huntresses I've ever met. You all expressed it in different ways, but if one of you decided you were going to do something, you went and did it. I think you managed that trait better than the rest of your team, but would you have listened if I told you to take it easy?"

There was silence for a moment, then Blake shook her head. Coco rose from her seat and helped Blake stand.

"I can't believe you of all people called me stubborn," Blake said.

Coco grinned. "Come on Belladonna, I'm the original obstinate bitch."

…

Reese stepped back from the workbench and stretched. It had taken her from the end of the meeting until dusk to scavenge parts from around the village. Hours had passed since then, but she had managed to slap together a crude repeater to boost their scroll signal. The housing was a patchwork of different kinds of sheet metal, and it sounded like it was about to explode when she turned it on, but it would get the job done.

Her stomach growled. She gathered her toolkit and hoverboard and exited the small workshop a few streets down from the inn. As she closed the door, a voice came from behind her.

"Are we ready to blast my village's shrill wilderness folk music at the pop music fans in Vale?"

Reese snorted. She turned to see Royce walking toward her. "Not quite yet. What brings you by?"

"My watch shift is over and I'm looking for someone to grab a late-night dinner with before I hit the hay. If you're interested, I know where the innkeeper hides his best food."

"Lead on."

They walked through the village. There was a small but constant amount of quiet activity on the streets. No large groups roamed, but they passed a handful of individuals moving with purpose. Peering down side alleys they could see figures moving along the walkways near the top of the village walls. The tension was level and controlled, the result of generations of villagers reining their emotions in to prevent attracting grimm, but it was palpable all the same. Royce showed absolutely none of it, walking with his fingers laced behind his head, his halberd slung across his back.

"You look better," he said. "Like you did when you first got here."

Reese shrugged. "I'm back in my element. I'm on track to get us talking to Vale again, even if it takes a while."

"Which is why you recruited people to build the antenna and work in the forge."

"Anyone can weld struts or purify dust with a little instruction, but jury-rigging a repeater that won't burn out the second it turns on from scraps and old radios is an art."

Reese placed a hand to her chest. "And I am a master of the arts."

Royce let out a bark of laughter. "I thought masters were humble and old."

"Dude, I made a small generator from a model train set, a teakettle, and a flame Dust crystal. I secured my dorm room at Haven with laser tripwires I made with batteries and a bunch of broken CD players. I made hand grenades from Dust and old pens. I think I've earned the right to be a little proud of myself."

"Hand grenades made from pens?"

Reese made a wobbling motion with her hand. "Eh, I guess they were more like flashbangs."

"That sounds more believable." Royce grinned. "So if you're this super genius, why haven't we called Vale yet?"

"The antenna isn't done, and we need a lot more refined Dust. I'd have helped with that earlier, but building a repeater like I did is tricky, even with good components."

"How so?"

"Using dust to produce a specific frequency of electromagnetic radiation requires a closed system to contain the dust; which is incredibly delicate and precise work. Stray particles in the air are fine if you're firing a dust weapon, but if you're generating some kind of radio wave or x-ray or anything like that, stray dust inside the machine interferes with whatever frequency you're—"

Reese froze in her tracks. Then she slapped her forehead.

"Eu-freakin-reka," she whispered.

"What is it?" Royce asked.

They had reached the inn, but Reese kept walking past the door in the direction of the blacksmith's forge.

"I'll catch you later, I need to get some of the purified dust." She broke into a jog.

Royce cocked his head. "Why?"

"Because I know how to fix the thing we found in Perfection!" she called over her shoulder as she hopped onto her hoverboard and rode down the street.

Reese rode until she reached the blacksmith's workshop, and retrieved a thumb-sized vial of the newly-purified dust. After pocketing it she rode back to the inn, drew a startled glance from the innkeeper as she burst through the door, and ran up the stairs and down the hall to her room. She slowed as she neared the door, padding softly across the wood floor. She reached for the knob, gave it a slow twist like she was cracking a safe, and slipped inside, switching on her scroll light as she did so.

She tiptoed through the room, careful not to rouse Blake, but the care proved unnecessary. Before Reese had left earlier, Blake had fallen asleep in her clothes the moment she removed her boots. She hadn't moved since; lying curled on her side, draped in the folds of her coat, and softly snoring. Her cat ears, unbound from her bow, twitched every so often. Reese watched Blake's shoulders rise and fall for a few moments, then retrieved her pack and slipped back out the door.

She moved a few doors down to the end of the hall and entered a small common room. A couch, and a round table circled by chairs sat inside. She unrolled her toolkit out on the table and laid the device in front of her. It was box-shaped, and its front panel had popped off when its owner had fallen down the well, revealing ruined circuits and tangled wires.

Reese pushed aside some of the wires and examined the inside of the housing. At Perfection's inn she had been too shaken by her experience at the bottom of the well to closely inspect the thing, and they had all been too focused on the mission at the following villages for her to spend much time with the device. But sitting behind the safety of the Crescent Hollow's walls with a relative abundance of time, she was able to examine it in a thorough, unhurried manner.

Her eyes tracked along the housing until she noticed a faint line in the metal, near a wire that had come loose. She pried at it with a screwdriver and popped open a panel. Inside was a contact that looked like it would accept the loose wire, and a collection of thin rubber tubes that attached to the housing at a point opposite what Reese had assumed was a dent on the outside of the box. Wrapped in the rubber hoses and mounted in a pronged setting was a wafer-thin bruise-colored crystal.

Something hummed in Reese's head and she saw how the wires had connected to the crystal with pronged copper ends; how they had snaked across the circuits, linking to the box's missing control panel; how the series of thin rubber tubes had held the ultra-pure lightning dust that had led her to the box, keeping stray particles from producing interference; how the dent the tubes led to wasn't a dent, but where cartridges of the ultra-pure dust fed the device its lifeblood. Reese saw the device's insides in her mind as if it were brand new.

And she saw how she could rebuild it with the right parts.

It wouldn't be pretty, and it probably wouldn't work for long, but she'd know what it did. She dug through her bag, securing the tools and spare parts she needed. A few pieces short, she scanned the room and spied an old radio sitting on a shelf. She put it on the table with the rest of her things, pried off the back, and starting pulling out wires and silicon. She grinned as she cannibalized the radio.

"Arslan always did say I was a terrible houseguest," she said.

…

Coco sat at a table in the dining room on the inn's first floor, polishing the side of her boot for the third time. She moved the cloth around in tight circles, buffing the latest coating of polish she had applied. She set the cloth down next to her beret and sunglasses, and cocked her head at the boot to examine it up close. The black leather shone, reflecting a silhouette with crisp defined features.

"Oh good, we've moved onto accessorizing," said a cheeky voice. "Has the threat level dropped since this afternoon?" Coco looked up to see Royce carrying a cloth bag.

"Hardly," she said. "I just hate lying in bed if I can't fall asleep. I ran out of productive things to do an hour ago. What's your excuse?"

Royce shrugged. "I was going to eat dinner with one of your teammates, but that fell through so I just ate in the kitchen. I thought I'd sit out here and collect my thoughts for a bit."

He produced a bottle of brown liquor and a pair of whisky tumblers from the bag.

"I would be delighted if you'd join me." He regarded her with a thoughtful look. "You look much better without the beret."

Coco frowned at the glasses, then up at Royce. "Really? We could be attacked at any second and you decide that flirting with me is your best course of action?"

"Stranger things than romance have happened under siege."

"Not under any siege I've been a part of. Besides, I've got someone waiting for me in Vale."

Royce blinked at that information, then shrugged. "Then let's just share a drink as two young comrades in arms; no romantic advances from me. You said yourself you ran out of productive things to do; if it doesn't help you sleep, it'll help you relax."

There was a pause. Coco opened her mouth to tell him off, but her gaze went back to the bottle. Back in Vale she had been saving an almost identical bottle of whisky she had stolen from Sanctum's headmaster as a souvenir. It was older than her father, and its color was like someone had bottled autumn itself. She had been saving it for the day CFVY graduated from Beacon, but like everything else in her room, it had gone up in smoke with the rest of the school. Coco sighed and gestured for Royce to sit.

" _One_ drink."

Royce smiled and sat down. He poured two fingers of whisky into each glass. Coco sipped at her glass, savoring the burn and the smoky flavor of the spirit; her face serene. Royce tried to affect the same expression, but he grimaced as he tasted the drink and gently set the glass down. Coco let out an amused snort.

"Nora has a friend like you. He tries to be suave, but he never quite pulls it off. You take a hint better than he does though."

"It's common courtesy," Royce said. "Why waste time on someone who's not interested? That just aggravates everyone."

Coco rolled her eyes, but there was an amused quality to the expression. "If only more guys understood that."

Royce chuckled. "You just need to reframe it in selfish terms for the persistent ones: moving on lets you find someone who's willing to give you a chance—like another lovely Vale huntress."

"It sounds like you've got a type."

"Yeah, my age and available. I already offered Nora a tour of the village the night you first arrived and she turned me down. Even if Blake defected, the idea of asking out an ex-White Fang member terrifies me, so that just leaves Reese."

Coco sniffed. "Your judgement seems inconsistent."

"She's not that bad."

"She's a _liability._ " Coco set her glass down with a 'clack', emphasizing the last word. "Her team leader thought bringing her on this mission was a bad idea, but she said; 'It was Reese's decision.' If Vale's command hadn't been so adamant we take her, I would have sent her right back to Mistral. I wouldn't be surprised if she hadn't fought a single grimm until Beacon. I used to live in Mistral; city-born huntsmen don't always get enough experience with live grimm their first year at Haven."

Royce leaned to one side and gave Coco's boots a pointed look, before doing the same to the rest of her outfit.

"I wasn't born in the city," said Coco.

"Well aren't you a chameleon? Isaac will be glad to know he's not the only faunus in town."

They sat in silence for a few minutes as they finished their drinks. When they had finished, Royce gazed at his glass with a pensive look.

"I think Reese will surprise you. She may not have a lot of grimm kills under her belt, and she doesn't have the huntress mentality yet, but she's got enough spirit and brains that I think she could become a good huntress with the right team helping her grow."

"And that opinion of yours is in no way influenced by the fact that you think she's cute," Coco said, her voice dry.

"If it was, I would have said she's destined to become the best huntress of all time. I'm charming, not dishonest."

Coco laughed. She looked at the bottle, shrugged, and refilled both glasses. She held hers up.

"To growth."

Royce smiled and they clinked their glasses together. Coco gave him an appraising look as she drank.

"Before we went to scout the villages you said you wished you could have studied at Beacon."

"That's right," Royce said.

Coco leaned back in her seat. "Well we're both off duty and can't sleep, and I need to feel productive. What would you like to learn?"

…

Reese's hands moved across her workspace with a fluid precision that made her look possessed. Every few minutes she'd pause and close her eyes, consulting a mental image of what the device had looked like before she had removed every part and cleaned out the housing. Then she'd seize a part, secure it within the housing, and solder the appropriate connections. She continued at a steady stop-go pace until all that was left was the part where she got creative.

She produced a small switch, and wired it to the rest of the device. Without any additional metal to work with, she removed the faceplate from a light switch by the door, fit the switch through it, and secured the faceplate with a small bottle of superglue. Reese attached the device to her belt and looked down at it, her hand resting on its side. Then she turned her face away from it, shielding her eyes with her other arm.

"Please don't explode," she said, then flicked the switch.

…

Fire blazed into the night until only the brightest stars shone through the smoke. The White Fang had come to Vacuo and unleashed grimm upon Shade Academy just like they had at Beacon, producing similar results. People ran and screamed and died, the grimm devastated the grounds, and the White Fang picked off those who looked like they would escape, just like before.

One thing differed: This time, Blake was ready.

She watched a group of White Fang soldiers, led by a tall man with red hair, follow a young pair of students as they fled through the oasis gardens. They ran down a path bordered on either side by vine-covered trellises. The students passed a bench and Blake pulled on an almost invisible length of fishing line. Explosives engulfed all but two of the soldiers in a burst of fire. Blake leapt from her hiding place and cut down the remaining two soldiers with two neat strokes of her blades; one to the neck, the other across the belly. She turned to the students.

"Are you okay?"

The boy began to answer, but then his eyes bulged in terror. Blake dove forward and tackled them to the ground, leaving a shadow clone behind to take the gunfire. Blake rolled to her feet and spun around to find Adam strolling towards them unharmed, twirling Blush around one hand.

"You'll have to try harder, my love," he said, a languid sneer on his face.

"Go," she said to the students. She squared off against Adam as the students ran, slinging Gambol Shroud over her shoulder in favor of another pair of swords she had acquired for this fight; jagged one-handed blades shaped like lightning bolts. The two stood perfectly still for what seemed like ages. Then Adam flicked Blush up, and Blake dashed forward and to the side, swinging her right sword.

Bursts of electricity shot out from the blade and streaked towards Adam. Unable to parry the immaterial strikes, Adam took the electricity in the chest; growling in pain and bending at the waist. He swung Wilt at Blake. Blake leapt towards him as if to tackle him, then sprung up away from a shadow clone, vaulting high over Adam as the clone's momentum carried it forward, knocking Adam over even as he skewered it and turned it to smoke. He roared in anger and chased after Blake, crashing through the hedges and trellises of the garden as she weaved over and around them.

Blake burst into the open, coming upon a reflecting pool with a stone fountain in the middle. She glanced over her shoulder to see Adam following only three strides behind. She surged forward with a final burst of speed and leapt into the fountain, wading as fast as she could through the water, her heart pounding. She heard a large splash close behind her as Adam landed in the fountain—exactly where she wanted him.

Blake leapt one final time, getting some extra height by springing out of a clone. She spun in midair to face Adam and swung the other jagged sword, sending bright blue-white bursts of energy towards Adam's legs. The dust bursts landed and froze the water around Adam's legs in a circle two yards across. He staggered, shouting in pain as his knees locked out when he tried to move forward. Blake landed on the fountain's base, inches from the water. She didn't quip or gloat; she just bared her teeth, snarled, and thrust the lightning dust sword into the water.

Arcs of electricity danced across the surface of the water like leaping fish, lighting up the night even brighter than the fires. Adam screamed in agony and convulsed as the electricity flowed through his body and boiled the water of the fountain. The smell of ozone and burning flesh filled the air. Blake burned through the sword's dust reserves in fifteen seconds, but those seconds lasted a triumphant eternity. When there was no more dust left, Adam fell forward into the water and floated face down.

Blake stepped into the water and waded carefully over to Adam. She prodded him once, then shoved the spent dust sword through his neck just to be safe. She glowered down at the body for a moment, then turned and waded towards the edge of the fountain. She had almost reached the edge when she stepped forward and plunged straight down. Blake surfaced and gasped, kicking to keep her head above water that had been knee-deep moments before. A low and mocking laugh drifted from thin air, and Blake's heart turned to ice.

"You never learn, Blake. But I'll still give you one final lesson."

Something seized Blake's foot and dragged her five feet underwater before she could scream. When she tried, clouds of bubbles floated up to the surface, growing farther and farther away as she was dragged down. She thrashed and clawed at the water above her as she sank. In the darkness underwater, all she could see were vague shapes: Grimm, bandits, a chair…

Blake shot out of her nightmare, dry and warm in the inn's bed, but still unable to breathe. Her hands clawed at her throat, touching something coarse and thick wrapped around it. She pulled at it, fighting for air, but it stayed tight. Behind her, someone rolled her onto her stomach and jabbed their knees into her back, pinning her in place. Her arms flailed, but she couldn't bend them back to strike her attacker. She tried to call for help, but all that came out was a plaintive wheeze.

Spots appeared in her vision, bright as fireworks on a summer night, then the unlit room grew even blacker.

…

Reese felt a strange tingling sensation course through her body but nothing changed. She didn't feel stronger or faster or more energetic. She frowned for a moment, pondering what the box could have done, then dug an empty vial out of her pocket and chucked it straight up. She moved underneath it as it fell back down and cursed as it struck her nose.

"Not a forcefield then," she said to herself. She scanned the room for something to lift, wondering if the box had given her super strength after all, and her gaze fell on the couch. She crouched next to it, hooked a finger under it, and strained. The couch didn't move until she used both hands. She glared at her hands in frustration.

Her hands weren't there.

She yelped, springing back, and looked down at herself. She saw nothing. She grabbed her scroll off the table to look for her reflection in the screen. It reflected an empty room back at her for a brief moment before it vanished. She set the scroll down and it blinked back into existence.

She grabbed different items testing the effect. Her hoverboard and some stray dust crystals disappeared, as did her screwdriver and her pack. She grasped one of the chairs in the room, but it remained visible; as did the table, the bookshelf and every other large item she tried the effect on. Reese flopped back in one of the chairs, trying to process the full implications of her discovery. She failed to muster any coherent thought. Then she burst out laughing.

"This is frigging awesome!" She sprung out of the chair and left the common room, moving down the hall to her nearest potential witness. She swung the door to her room open, throwing light across the bed near the door.

"Blake, wake up! You have got to—"

Reese froze in the door. Blake was twitching and making choking sounds, her hands feebly slapping at her throat. A thick rope, big around as her thumb was pulled taut across her windpipe, its ends pulled back into the air by an unseen force as if held by a ghost. The back of Blake's coat was creased as if something was pressing against it.

Reese darted inside, grabbed a lamp from the night table, and swung it at a point behind and above the ends of the rope. The lamp struck something solid with a 'CRACK', the impact sending tremors up Reese's arms. She heard a cry of pain, and a depression formed in the bed as if someone had fallen there. The rope slackened and Blake tore away, diving off the bed and gasping for air as she staggered to her feet. Her head shot back and forth, her eyes wide with confusion and terror. There was a groan from the depression in the bed, and it moved towards Blake, disappearing as it stepped onto the floor.

"No you don't!" Reese shouted. She yanked the sheets off the bed and tossed them towards Blake. They stopped a yard from her, draping over a human figure where there had only been empty air. The figure shouted in surprise and thrashed against the sheets, but it was too slow. Reese swung a chair at its legs, knocking it to the floor. Then she brought the chair down again and again with overhand swings, shouting in wordless fury, striking the attacker until the chair shattered into a mess of wood scraps and crossbeams. The form under the sheet lay still. Reese exhaled in relief, only to jump back as a sword cut the air where she had stood. Blake swung both halves of _Gambol Shroud_ , slashing through the air blindly in every direction.

"Blake! It's over, it's me!" Reese shouted. She reached down to flick off the cloaking device and held up her hands in defense. Blake stared at Reese for a moment, her upper body heaving as she breathed in ragged gasps, then collapsed back into the remaining chair.

"What the _fuck_ was that?" she asked, her eyes wide.

Before Reese could answer, running footsteps came from down the hall, hurrying towards their room. Reese hefted a chair leg and fistful of sheets, and Blake brandished _Gambol Shroud_. Both huntresses assumed fighting stances. The footsteps drew closer, slowing as they neared the door.

"Blake? Reese?" Coco asked. They relaxed as Coco and Royce entered the room, weapons drawn. Coco looked from Blake to Reese slightly confused, then looked at the body. "Lovely. Is that one of the assholes we've been trying to find?"

"I think so," Reese said. She inched back towards the figure and gently prodded it with her foot. It didn't move. She peeled back the sheets on Blake's would-be assassin to find a man with wolf ears dressed like the body from the well. He wore the same device as Reese belted to his hip; its control panel smashed from her attack. Reese pointed at it.

"That's how they've been getting around without anyone noticing. There's some weird crystal in these things that lets these guys disappear. Energy released by the dust in the box goes through them, it breaks a couple laws of physics, and 'bam': invisible bandits."

"Invisible bandits?" said Coco, her voice skeptical. "You're joking."

Reese gave Coco a flat look and cycled the switch on the cloaking device, popping out of view and back. Coco gawked at Reese for a moment, then she shook her head and composed herself. Her fingers played with her sunglasses where they hung at her throat as she processed the new information, then she spoke:

"Do you have any way to make these guys visible again?"

Reese shook her head. "Nothing practical. I only took this guy down because the sheet didn't turn invisible when I tossed it over him."

"Too bad they weren't nice enough to leave footprints this time."

Reese and Royce perked up at the same time and exchanged glances. Coco stared at them, perplexed.

"What did I say?"

"Give me five minutes with my gear and I can throw something together," Reese said. "It'll be like putting a band-aid on a grimm bite, but it'll be better than nothing." Before Coco could reply, she moved towards the door and flicked the device on, vanishing from sight just before she passed through the doorway. Coco turned to Royce.

"What's your bright idea?"

"There's something we can use downstairs. It'll sound really dumb if I tell you though."

"Royce, answer the damn—"

"We're wasting time," said Blake. She cupped her throat gingerly and flinched. "We need to warn the village. This is an old White Fang tactic for attacking a fortified position: take out the off-duty threats with infiltrators to spread fear, then hit the active defenders in their backs while the main force strikes."

As soon as Blake finished speaking, a short cry of surprise came from downstairs, followed by a muted thump. They turned to the door, weapons ready. Coco cracked her knuckles.

"Blake, watch Reese's back. Royce, you come with me and clear the ground floor. Once everyone's ready, we'll raise the alarm and secure the village."

"Splitting up?" Royce asked. "You sure that's a good idea?"

"We have to move fast. You chickening out on me lanky?"

He raised his halberd to a ready position. "You wish."

* * *

It's good to be back, I hope y'all enjoyed this chapter!


	8. Chapter 8

CNBR Chapter 8:

Royce padded down the hallway, swinging his halberd back and forth like a metal detector as he walked. Coco followed close behind, ready to pounce on anything that reacted to Royce's advance. At the end of the hall, he peered out over the railing, then gestured for Coco to follow.

She followed his gaze to see a man lying sprawled on the ground floor, unmoving. A moment's observation showed a slight rise and fall in his chest.

"So, trap?" Royce murmured.

"Of course." Coco said, her voice low. "We could grab him and run for the door but they'll have the exits covered, and we need to regroup before we leave. Is there anywhere we can hole up downstairs?"

"The kitchen. There's a walk-in pantry that only has one door, but they can't lock us in like they could with the freezer."

Coco tightened her grip on _Belle Mort's_ handle. "Okay, I'll jump down and haul him there, you cover me with your rifle and try to follow when you can."

Royce grimaced. "You really like charging into traps, huh?"

"We're not having this conversation again."

"You're right; but not for the reason you think. BANZAI!"

Royce vaulted over the railing midway through his shout and dashed towards the fallen innkeeper. Coco swore, scanning the room for any sign of trouble. A curtain rustled on the far wall, seemingly of its own will.

"On your left!" she shouted.

Royce looked up from where he crouched next to the innkeeper. He began to stand, lifting his halberd, but something collided with his knees before he could bring it to bear, knocking him onto his back. A weight landed atop him before he could rise, pinning his chest to the ground. Royce brought his halberd up, oriented across his body, and slammed its haft into the unseen attacker's chest. He felt them press down against it, gradually folding his arms closer to his body. As his arms collapsed, something cold and metallic pricked his throat.

A shout came from Royce's right, and Coco flew into the attacker feet first. There was a cry of surprise and Royce felt the weight leave his body. A dagger clattered to the ground a few feet away, and a few yards past that the chairs on one side of a table scattered like bowling pins.

"Take him!" Coco shouted, climbing to her feet. Royce tucked his halberd under his arm, seized the innkeeper by his wrists, and dragged him towards the kitchen. Coco took the dagger in her free hand, then ran after Royce.

Royce passed through a doorway into a narrow kitchen. Rows of prep areas, sinks, and ranges lined either side of the room. Cooking utensils hung above the rows, and two doors sat in the far wall of the room; one heavy metal, the other wood. As Coco passed into the kitchen, running footsteps sounded from behind her. She spun, bringing _Belle Mort_ up in an arc, only for their assailant to sock her in the gut. Coco doubled over, gasping for breath and dropping her weapons. An arm wrapped around her neck in a chokehold, and she felt her feet leave the ground. She clutched the arm at her neck as it squeezed tighter, her feet flailing. She kicked the opposite counter and cursed at the sudden pain in her foot.

A flash of insight hit her. Coco planted both feet on the opposite counter and pushed, slamming her attacker's back into the hard metal edge of a sink basin. He didn't let go, but he hunched over enough for Coco to plant her feet on the ground. She threw her weight forward in a violent burst and tossed her attacker over her shoulder. A loud smack came from the floor in front of her, followed by the sound of someone climbing to their feet. Coco assumed a boxer's stance and listened for movement. She heard the tip-tap of short rapid footsteps and swung a right hook in that direction. Her fist grazed the edge of someone, only for her opponent to land hits to her ribs and jaw. She stumbled back, hands raised in defense.

"Royce, if you don't get your hayseed ass out here right now—"

"FIRE IN THE HOLE!" he shouted. A large eggshell-colored package landed on the prep area just in front of Coco with a thud, followed a moment later by a shot from Royce's rifle and an explosion of white. Coco flinched and clutched her ears, now ringing from the gunshot in the confined space. She looked up to see everything covered in white powder…including a figure a few inches taller than her mirroring her posture of agony. Upon seeing him Coco forgot about her pain and grinned with bared teeth.

"Hey there, buddy!" she said.

Coco surged forward, landing strikes on the man's temple and chin before he managed to rise into a defensive posture and strike back. The man had slightly better reach, but now that Coco could see him, she was able to dodge some hits and take the ones she couldn't on her arms and shoulders. The man growled in frustration and threw a straight punch at her face. Coco ducked inside the attack, lowered her shoulder, and body checked him into the counter. He stumbled after the impact, but before he could stand Coco slammed his head into the countertop and shoved him to the ground. His head hit the tile with a muted crack and he lay still.

Coco watched to see if he'd rise, her chest heaving as she caught her breath. When she was satisfied he'd stay down, she gathered the knife and _Belle Mort_ , and scanned the room for any other threats. The floor was covered in a thin layer of flour; undisturbed, save for where she had sparred with their attacker. Royce stepped out from the pantry, bags of flour tucked under each arm.

"The innkeeper's going to hole up in there with his favorite carving knife until he can move again," he said. "You ready?"

Coco half-turned to Royce. "You were right: Your plan would have sounded dumb if you'd told me."

"It worked though."

Coco sighed, shaking her head as she led the way back to the front of the inn.

…

Reese and Blake reached the bottom of the stairs just as Coco and Royce returned to the front. Reese blinked at Coco, coated in flour, and the additional bags of flour that Royce was carrying.

"Huh," said Reese. "My idea doesn't seem that stupid anymore."

"Care to elaborate?" Coco asked, refraining from a sharp reply.

Reese unslung her pack from her shoulder and produced several vials of oddly colored dust from within. "This should help mark anyone who's invisible. It's a blend of water and earth dust that'll coat anything it hits with mud. It doesn't solve the problem of actually finding our attackers, but it's all I've got on short notice."

Royce dropped his bags and took some of the dust. Coco examined one of the vials, then slipped it into her pocket. "It'll have to do. Did either of you contact Nora?"

Blake frowned. "Short-range communication on our scrolls isn't working. They've probably got a jammer outside the wall."

"We'll just have to let her know there's trouble the old-fashioned way," Royce said. He converted his halberd to its rifle form, drew a round with an orange tip from his vest pocket and chambered it. "I'll shoot this off and try to secure the meeting hall so the village can shelter there. If this goes how I want it to, it should draw enough attention to let you guys sneak out to the gate. I'll catch up with you after I've got the hall secured."

"Alright," Coco said. She looked at Reese, her eyes dropping to her belt. "Reese, give your new toy to Blake."

Reese balked at the order. "Blake's already a ninja! I need every edge I can get."

"You are not quiet, at all. The most you'll get out of it is a few extra seconds while they track you by sound."

"Coco—"

Blake laid a hand on Reese's shoulder. "Reese, you'll be fine. You made me work for that ring out back in our tournament match. If I hadn't tricked you, that match might have been even closer.

She leaned in, and her mouth turned up at the corners. "Besides, these jerks think their assassins killed me. Can you imagine the look on their faces when the ghost of Blake Belladonna decides to get revenge?"

Reese stood straighter, a little swagger returning to her posture. "I'd pay money to see that," Reese said. Amusement glimmered in her eyes as she handed the cloaking device over to Blake. Blake clipped it to her belt, turned it on, and blinked out of sight. She made an uncomfortable sound.

"This is so weird," she said.

"How many of those guys do you think are out there?" Reese asked.

Blake's voice came from thin air: "If they're utilizing typical White Fang tactics, they'll have sent in two or three infiltration teams for a village this size. Leaving out the two we already dealt with—"

"At least _six_ more?"

"It's a conservative assumption, but yes."

"Ain't that peachy."

"There is a bright side," Blake said. "They'll be spread thin attacking multiple targets inside the village. So, there's a reasonable chance no one's close enough to the inn to notice us leave. That should give us a chance to catch them off guard."

"What, exactly, is our plan for that?" Reese asked, turning to Coco.

Coco gave them a smirk. "Find Nora and raise hell. Keep it simple."

Reese spun her hoverboard in her hands, a grin spreading across her face. "I like simple." she said.

…

The inn door burst open. Royce popped out, pointed his rifle straight up, and fired, sending a red sphere rocketing skyward with a shrieking whistle. It burst, lighting up the village and the fields beyond. Royce switched the rifle back to a halberd and sprinted down the street, shouting; "THE WILDS ENDURE!" Just as the flare began to fade, a bell started ringing somewhere in the village.

After a few moments had passed, a window opened in the wall of the inn facing away from the front door. Coco climbed out of it, followed by Reese, and the sound of Blake landing behind them. They sprinted down an alley, towards the main gate. From behind them, Royce's shouts echoed down the street.

"He is way too excited about this," Coco said, turning a corner and dashing across a street to an alley on the opposite side.

"He did say he was going to create a distraction," Reese said, hopping onto her board.

"There's creating a distraction and there's pure idiocy."

"You should hang out with Arslan when this is all over; she says weaponized idiocy is the only reason ABRN functions, and no, she wasn't including me."

Coco opened her mouth to say something snarky, when a scream came up from up ahead, followed by the sound of rifles firing. Reese stomped on her board and shot forward, speeding along the alley and shooting out the opening at the far end. She whipped her hips around, bringing the board to a stop behind an empty cart. She separated her hoverboard into a pair of revolvers, then spun out from cover, guns raised.

The street widened into a small square with a fountain in it just before the gate. Atop the wall, guards moved in frantic confusion. Men tumbled to the ground below without apparent cause, or collapsed bleeding atop the catwalk. One group of men had barricaded a section of the wall with containers and shields. They rattled as their unseen assailants tried to press through. The opposite side of the barricaded section was guarded by a small silhouette swinging a large hammer.

Closer to where Reese had emerged from the alley, a man limped past the fountain, swinging his rifle around with wild spastic motions. A swirl of dust rose in the street just in front of him. The man trained his rifle on the spot, but as he fired the rifle's muzzle jerked up, sending the shot into the air. It slammed back into the man's face, knocking him down. He started to crawl away, his arms shaking but something pinned his foot in place.

"Oi! Jackass!" Reese shouted. She fired a volley of shots at the space above the man's foot. Most of the shots hit buildings down the street but two struck home, coating a shoulder, an upper arm, and a thigh in thick viscous mud. She took more care with the following shots, revealing the rest of a torso. The attacker crouched and moved towards a building in an attempt to take cover. Reese reloaded and advanced towards him.

As Reese neared the fallen man, the attacker swept his arms in rapid arcs. Something whistled by her ear, accompanied by something else ricocheting off her shoulder, and the painful impact of what felt like a sharp rock slamming into her forearm. She fired back and dove behind the fountain. She looked down at her arm and pulled a flat x-shaped piece of metal out of her arm.

"Ninja stars?" Reese called back. "What are you, twelve?"

In response, two more of the stars flew past the fountain and clipped her calf. Reese swore and scooted back, pulling her legs into cover. She blind-fired around the side of the fountain, and more stars buried themselves in the dirt just past her gun. Another struck the gun, sending it tumbling into the line of fire. Something splashed in the fountain and Reese popped up to her knees, holding her remaining gun in a two-handed grip. At first, there didn't appear to be anyone in the fountain. Then she noticed a small round object sitting at the bottom and leapt back.

The grenade turned the fountain into rubble, taking a chunk out of Reese's aura, and sending her remaining pistol flying. She lay on her back, her ears ringing, then rose to her feet, wobbling. She had only moved two steps towards her weapon when the man charged at her, moving with speed that seemed impossible in Reese's shell-shocked state. She brought her hands up to defend herself but the motion was sluggish, like swimming through molasses.

As he drew closer, something snagged his foot and yanked it behind him, sending him sprawling onto the ground. A ribbon appeared from thin air, wrapped around his foot. The man curled into a defensive position as something struck him repeatedly, drawing blood and revealing itself to be a cleaver-style blade as blood coated its edge. There was a crunching sound, and his cloaking device died, revealing a man with a grimm mask and dark armor. His head whipped sharply to the side as if someone had kicked it and the man lay still. The ribbon disappeared, then the man's tunic ran itself along the blade, cleaning off the blood to make it invisible once more.

"Thanks for the save," Reese said.

"Anytime," said Blake.

Reese went to gather her weapons and help the fallen villager to safety. She had just moved him inside a house when Coco caught up with her. She doubled over, her shoulders heaving as she caught her breath.

"Damn you're fast," she said between breaths.

"Maybe you could keep up if you didn't wear five-pound boots," Reese said.

"All the better to kick your ass with."

"Guys, the wall!" Blake said.

Coco looked to the gate. Without a word Coco deployed her gun, tossed Reese's new dust blend into it, and spooled up her barrels. "Let's make it rain."

"Hey up top!" Reese shouted. "Hang on to something!"

Coco sprayed the top of the wall with gunfire. Reese's dust blend diminished the rounds' ballistic energy, leaving anything sturdier than glass intact, but the torrent of mud covered everything like water from a firehose, knocking friend and foe alike against the inside of the ramparts. Reese switched to ice dust and fired at each newly exposed enemy. Only a few shots landed direct hits, but the rest struck the ramparts and catwalk, separating the attackers and the guards with large jagged crystals. Moments later, Coco exhausted Reese's dust blend, but it had done its job. Outfitted for stealth, the intruders had little in the way of firearms, save for a few pistols. The villagers had hunting rifles.

The villagers aimed through their new frigid defenses and fired, driving the intruders back. On the villagers' other side, Nora switched _Magnhild_ into its grenade launcher form, spun its drum, and fired. There was a loud _whump_ sound, and everything in that direction of the rampart went flying as if they had been hit by the world's briefest hurricane. Nora herself got knocked onto her rear by the force of the shot.

"What the hell was that?" Coco asked, opening the dust chamber on her gun for a new elemental effect.

"Airburst grenade," said Reese. She reformed her hoverboard. "I figured she might need a less-lethal option for her grenade launcher."

Coco narrowed her eyes at Reese.

" _Marginally_ less-lethal," Reese said.

"Eyes-on," Coco said, indicating the bottom of the wall. Some of the attackers were retreating down inside the wall, taking cover from the wall guards directly below the rampart catwalk. Coco revved her gun again. "Let's pin those jerks like—"

Before she could finish, two weighted lengths of chain spun through the air, pinning Coco's arms to her sides and snaring her ankles. She toppled to the ground, dropping her gun and landing on her shoulder. Reese heard someone charging from their right. She swung her board with both hands, circling herself and Coco in a c-shaped wall of ice six feet tall. Something knocked against the outside of the ice, then again atop the barrier. Reese heard someone land behind her just before something slammed her into the ice wall she had just erected. She groaned and slid to the ground, clutching her head. She tried to rise, only to be kicked to the ground again. A foot stomped on her wrist and she cried out as pain shot up her forearm.

"Is this really the best Vale could offer?" a low voice asked.

One moment there was nothing. The next, a sword coated in blood appeared in the center of a dripping red shoulder and the low voice roared in pain. Reese felt the weight of his foot leave her wrist, then the rest of the man popped into view as someone yanked the cloaking device from his belt. He wore dark close-fitting clothing that wouldn't snag on anything or compromise his range of motion, and a pair of combat boots. Dull gray plates of armor covered his clothes and boots in strategic locations. He wore a black grimm mask that covered his entire face and tapered to a pointed, almost angular chin. The sword twisted in the man's shoulder and he recoiled in on himself.

"Maybe not," Blake's voice said, "But we'll do."

The man made an ugly sound, both vicious and gleeful, grabbed a rod from his belt and thrust it behind him. Blake screamed as blue sparks from the stun baton danced across her body. Something popped and she became fully visible again. Her arms fell limp to her side and she dropped the man's cloaking device and her katana. The man kicked backward, knocking Blake down. He removed the blade from his shoulder and gave it a flourish, then turned to face Blake. He retrieved his cloaking device, placed it back on his belt, and flicked the switch. He shimmered for a moment, but remained visible. He growled and ripped it off his belt, throwing it to the ground next to Blake.

"Bitch."

"Hey," Reese said, anger and pain slurring her speech. She stumbled to her feet, walked towards the man, and brandished her board, swaying a bit. "My friend didn't fry your toy; that happened because _you_ zapped her. Don't get pissy because you're a clumsy asshole."

Everything happened fast: The man spun towards Reese, snarled, and raised Blake's katana. Reese drew back her hoverboard like a baseball bat, but before she could strike, Nora swooped in from her right and struck him with her hammer. The blow sent the man flying into a nearby house, putting a small crater in the wall before he fell to the ground. Before he could get up, Nora closed the distance and thrust her hammer down like a spear, pinning the man at his injured shoulder. He screamed in pain. Reese stared dumbstruck for a moment.

A chuckle and the rattling of metal came from behind Reese. She turned to see Coco, her arms freed, untangling the chain around her ankles.

"Good thing Vale made us take her," she said.

The two of them gathered their weapons and rose. Looking back towards the wall, the other infiltrators were retreating from the villagers, slipping towards an alley. Their enemy momentarily occupied, the two huntresses helped Blake stand, then joined Nora and the struggling attacker. He writhed beneath _Magnhild's_ head, trying to slip free, but Nora held him firm.

"It's nice to finally meet you guys face-to-face," Coco said. She prodded him with her foot. "You want to tell us why you've been attacking these villages?"

"Do you really think I'd tell you?" he said. Under the pain, there was an amused quality to his voice, laced with arrogance and contempt.

Nora twisted her hammer and the man made an agonized sound. "If you want to keep your arm, I think you will," she said.

"Let's start with something easier," Coco said. "You're White Fang, aren't you? You never claimed you were, but your masks look similar to theirs, and the way you've attacked these villages just screams 'I hate humans'. I'll eat my beret if you're not White Fang."

The man craned his head up to look at Coco. "The White Fang are…cousins."

Blake leaned over to Coco and murmured in her ear. "They must be a splinter group. After Sienna Khan took over, certain branches of the White Fang took the opportunity to flout or alter established code and procedures."

"'Flout' is such an ugly word," the man said. "The only people who flout are headstrong fools like Adam Taurus, who cause just as much trouble for us as for the humans. Driving away the last loyal Belladonna shows just how competent he is, despite his strength and devotion." The man turned his head to look at Blake and his voice grew cold. "If you had fought for our branch Blake, you'd have become a distinguished leader or you'd have left the White Fang in a hundred pieces."

Blake shivered and took a step back. Reese swallowed a lump in her throat and retreated towards Blake. Coco stood fast, but clenched her hands hard enough for her knuckles to go white. Nora just stomped her foot down on the man's wrist.

"We get it: You're the big bad boogeymen of the White Fang," she said. She continued, grinding her heel against his wrist. "All we want to know is _why._ I can understand attacking the Vale government, but these people never hurt you! They're too busy surviving out here to bother anyone. Why can't you just leave them alone?

The man grunted and slid his feet back, pushing his hips and shoulder up with his feet and free elbow. He stared up at Nora. "Practice makes perfect," he said. "I'm actually a little impressed. You fared much better against our stealth equipment than any of the other villages. We might actually have to use some of our other resources."

Nora bared her teeth at the man. "Tell me about them."

"In time," he said.

The man gave his legs and arm a sudden thrust. There was a nauseating _crack,_ and he scurried away from _Magnhild_ , leaving his trapped arm behind. Coco fired at him, but he scrambled up a wall and onto a roof with his three remaining limbs before she could hit him. Reese pressed a hand to her mouth, fighting the urge to puke, while Nora stood dumbstruck by his sudden escape. Blake bent down, pushing Nora's hammer aside, and sliced open the separated arm's tunic sleeve to reveal scaly brown skin.

"Great, he's a lizard faunus," she said. "Yet another thing to worry about."

"How much more of that gunk dust do you guys have?" Nora asked.

"It doesn't matter," Coco said. "Even if we had a lot more, they know we discovered their stealth equipment. They won't get caught off guard by something desperate as mud dust or bags of flour again." She turned to Reese. "We need a permanent solution, Skate Rat."

Reese took a deep breath to dispel her nausea. She walked to the lizard faunus' discarded cloaking device, picked it up, and began pacing, turning the device in her hands. "Okay, so thanks to Blake getting tased we know a big enough electric shock will fry these things. We have plenty of lightning dust, but we can't short their equipment out if we can't see them. I could throw together grenades for Nora, but that would be just as likely to shock us; maybe more likely since grenades don't totally solve the aiming issue…"

"What if you made a grenade that went straight up and soaked the whole village with mud?" Nora asked.

Reese shook her head. "Even if I could cover that much area, they could just hide in a house. If I could make something with a wide area of effect that wasn't stopped by buildings—" Reese's face lit up in revelation for a moment, then scrunched up in concern.

"What is it?" Coco asked.

Reese bit her thumb, hesitating. "I have an idea, but even I think it's a really bad one."

"Really? This is when you decide to look before you leap?

"There is a _big_ chance that this will make things worse in the long term, it might irreversibly screw us over!"

"Reese, we might be screwed over anyway if we don't turn things around soon. We can't worry about the long term if we don't get that far. Look, if this works, will we survive the night?"

Reese kneaded her hoodie in her fingers. "Probably, if Blake's right about their numbers."

"Then let's do it," Coco said.

Reese took a deep breath, then nodded. "Okay. We need to bring as much lightning dust as possible and the repeater I built to the antenna. One of us needs to put our scrolls in a metal container somewhere safe; a literal safe if possible."

"Why do we need a safe?" Coco asked.

"You trust my stupid idea, but not the steps to make it less stupid?"

Coco conceded the point with a nod. She turned to the group. "Nora, keep holding the wall. Blake, hide our scrolls; Royce might know a good spot. Meet up with us back at the antenna when you're done. I'll help Reese get what she needs and watch her back while she works her magic."

She flashed them a grin. "Let's get some payback for Beacon."

…

Blake cursed as she leapt down to a lower rooftop, stumbling as she landed. Her throat still hurt from the thwarted assassination, and her encounter with the stun baton left her with cramps where it had struck, and a general fatigue like she had spent all day in the gym. Travelling via rooftops wasn't helping, but she was less likely to be cornered than if she traveled through the alleys. She jogged in a stumbling gait, sprinting only when she leapt between buildings as she moved towards the center of the village.

She stopped on a low roof overlooking a square. A long building with a peaked roof sat in the square, next to Marta's home. The windows were shuttered and a small crowd of people stood at the front door. The doors were cracked open wide enough to let people enter in a single file line, ensuring no infiltrator could slip through unnoticed. From behind a makeshift barricade, a small group of villagers pointed rifles out towards the square, a fresh layer of gravel spread across the space.

A patch of gravel shifted of its own accord, drawing the attention of a guard. He swung his rifle towards the movement and fired a little ahead of it, sending up a plume of gravel that bounced off a point in the air just behind where the shot hit. Something shimmered in the air and sent of a spray of gravel as it retreated back from the hall.

 _They're resourceful, but they can't last for long_ , Blake thought.

She was watching the square, assessing the best way to reach the door without getting ambushed by the invaders or shot by a jumpy villager, when she heard someone land on the roof behind her. She remained still, pretending she hadn't noticed. She listened for more footsteps and heard them, almost perfectly silent, as they edged towards her. When they were a few yards behind her, Blake leapt out over the square, turning in midair to fire a few rounds from her pistol. Lightning rounds struck home, revealing an infiltrator with curling ram horns on either side of her mask.

Blake began to tumble in midair, and she cursed as she hurtled towards the ground head first. She summoned a shadow clone and used it to propel herself towards the door of the building, but it made the tumble worse in the process. She struck the ground on her stomach and rolled to a stop halfway across the gravel field. She scrambled to her feet and lurched towards the building, only for something to collide with her from behind. She rolled onto her back and brought _Gambol Shroud's_ sheath up in a two-handed block just as the horned girl swung a short thick hand mace down at her. The impact shot down Blake's arms, making her teeth vibrate. The girl drew a second mace from her belt with her free hand and raised it above her head.

"Nice horns," Blake wheezed. The other girl tensed at the implication she was visible. Before she could spring away, three shots pinged off the armor plates on her shoulder and chipped part of her left horn. She howled, stumbling backwards, and scrambled for cover. Blake rose and continued to the door. After a few steps, Royce hopped the barricade, slipped her arm over his shoulder, and helped her up the steps. The doors opened wider to accommodate the both of them, then closed back to a bottleneck.

Royce guided her through a large crowded room, lined with chairs and cots. Villagers filled the room, watching the barricaded windows, maintaining weapons, calming the younger children, and attending to those who had been wounded. Royce stopped at the back near Marta and some of the other village leaders.

"Is it racist if I say something about you having nine lives?" he asked, helping Blake sit back against a wall. She snorted.

"I'll allow it," Blake said. She let out a grunt as she settled. "Some punk by the gate got me where I hit the tree a few days back."

"Are the others…?"

"They're fine. Nora's still at the gate, and Coco and Reese have some plan involving the antenna." She held up a pouch containing their scrolls. "Put this in a safe, or some other kind of metal box. Reese said it was important."

Royce arched an eyebrow, but took the bag. "Greenie say anything else?"

Blake shook her head. "Just hurry. When you're done we need to help out at the antenna. We only incapacitated four of them. Plus, they know we can counter their invisibility trick. They won't get caught off guard again."

Royce frowned and looked around the meeting hall. "Blake, we can't leave. I need to help hold things together here, and you're running on fumes. If we hadn't scared off that girl with the ram horns, she would have turned your brains into jelly. If you try to fight in your condition, they'll kill you."

"What do you think will happen if they take the village?" Blake said, standing back up, a hard edge in her voice. "We can't run, and we can't hole up forever and hope they'll go away. I really don't like it, but all we can do now is try to drive them off."

Royce stared at her a moment, then sighed. He hefted the bag. "You're right. We'll have someone patch you up while I stash your scrolls, then we'll head out. Sadie, can you give us a hand?" A girl around Royce's age appeared from near Marta and took Blake's hand, guiding her onto a cot. Blake let the girl examine her and patch a few wounds while Royce stored the scrolls. Royce reappeared a few minutes later.

"You said they'll be at the antenna, right?" Royce said. He stopped, looking down.

Blake lay sprawled on the cot, spent. Even unconscious, there was a frustrated resignation in her posture and on her face. Royce sighed, slipped her coat off with Sadie's help, and covered her with a blanket.

"I'll wake you when it's over," he said to Blake, then walked towards the door.

…

"How much longer Reese?" Coco asked, her voice low. "Things are way too quiet right now."

Coco pointed her gun down the street towards the village center. The antenna stood twenty feet tall in a small earthen plaza where two streets met. Two villagers stood on the other side of the antenna watching the opposite direction, while four more peered down from windows and rooftops to watch the rest of the square. Every so often shots came from where they had left Nora. More came from the direction of the shelter, but around the antenna things were still.

"It'll take as long as it takes," Reese said, grabbing a vial of dust. "Makeshift field engineering does not progress at our convenience."

"It doesn't have to be pretty," Coco said.

"But it _does_ have to work. This is going to literally blow up in my face if I don't do it right, and before you ask, it will probably not have the effect we want on these Black Fang dickheads if it goes off prematurely."

"Black Fang?"

Reese reclined onto her back and ran a pair of wires to the antenna base. "Well, they run around like paranormal ninjas, they're up to something creepy and mysterious, and even though no one's heard of them before they're planning something big for Vale. That just screams special operations, so 'Black Fang' seemed like a good name for them."

"Someone actually proposed that one, but most of us thought it sounded too juvenile," said a husky contralto to Coco's right.

Coco spun and fired a burst in the direction of the voice, shredding the front of a house. The villagers in elevated positions swung their rifles in that direction, but there was nothing there. Coco squinted, looking for any sign of movement. The voice spoke again several times, each time coming from a different section of the square, the tone conversational.

"Oh my, how quick! Heavy hitters don't usually have such reflexes."

"I wouldn't put money on her in a sword duel though."

"On the other hand, a boxing match might be a solid bet…"

The villagers looked around, confused and nervous. Coco swallowed a lump in her throat that felt like a ball of sandpaper. She swung her gun slowly across the square, fighting to keep her hands from shaking. She looked back to Reese, who sat frozen in place, and exchanged a wide-eyed look with her before turning back to the square.

"It had to be illusionists," she whispered.

"Illusions?" the voice called from ten yards to her left. "Hardly. This _is_ me speaking, and surely you all can't be sharing one giant hallucination. Or can you?"

"Ignore her," Coco said, a little louder than necessary. "She's testing our reactions and trying to distract us from her friends. If she was going to attack us, she would have done it already."

"Right you are!" the voice said from up high. Coco turned towards the voice in time to see one of the men on the rooftop get shoved off. He fell with a scream that ended in a crunch upon the ground. All hell broke loose as something large assaulted the other two men on the ground, while the other man on a rooftop fell onto his back, interposing his rifle between himself and his attacker. Those in the windows pointed their rifles at the chaos on the ground but didn't fire for fear of hitting their allies.

"Reese, turtle!" Coco shouted. Reese swung her hoverboard over and around her position from a crouch, forming a half-dome of ice that connected to the antenna, shielding her back and sides while she worked. Coco heard something rustle from the rooftop where the villager had fallen to the street, like a flag flapping in a strong wind. She dove to the ground just in time to feel something swoop through the air over her. She stood and fired in the direction it had traveled but only hit air and buildings.

"Good ears on you," the woman's voice called, with something like approval. "Most people wouldn't have heard that in the chaos."

Coco growled and moved around the antenna towards the large attacker on the ground in order to expose him, spinning up her gun barrels as she went. A foot hooked around her ankles and sent her sprawling before she could fire a shot. The woman made a clucking noise with her tongue.

"I know it's frustrating that you can't find me but it's rude to leave an opponent in the middle of a fight. Please stay focused."

Coco drew the dagger she had picked up at the inn and hacked at the air with haphazard slashes. "Is this a game to you?" She thrust forward and someone seized her by the wrist, twisting her arm behind her back. She flinched as her arm came within a hair of dislocating, pain shooting from her elbow to her shoulder. The woman brought her to her knees and spoke, her words laced with venom this time.

"It was, until you drew my teammate's dagger on me. I am going to _enjoy_ squeezing information out of you later."

Coco tried to twist away, but the woman just drove her closer to the ground. There was a soft click as the woman unclasped something from her belt, but before she could use whatever weapon she had drawn, a rifle cracked and the woman shrieked with anger. Coco felt a small jolt, and the woman let go of her arm. Coco scrambled away and rose, turning to see a woman dressed like the lizard faunus. Massive bat wings spread from her back, and sparks from the lightning dust round danced across the wings' membranes. She let out a feral sound and lunged at Coco with vicious speed, taking to the air as she struck. Coco ducked and felt something prick her neck as the bat faunus flew overhead, out into the night.

She looked around, trying to find the source of the shot and saw a pistol protruding from a hole in the ice dome. It withdrew into the dome, and a moment later the hole filled in. Coco felt her mouth twitch up at the corners, and she went to gather her weapons

"How are we doing, Reese?"

"Almost done!" she replied, her voice slightly muffled by the ice. "Keep them off me a little longer!"

Coco looked around the square. The men in the windows were facing inside, as if someone were trying to break into the rooms they were positioned in. The two men on the far side of the antenna were sprawled on the ground, attempting to crawl towards Coco and Reese, but something had ensnared their legs, impeding their approach. The other man on the roof had joined his counterpart on the ground in a crumpled heap.

"We don't have time!" Coco shouted. "Get it done—" Coco paused, suddenly light-headed. The spot on her neck where the bat faunus had nicked her throbbed with pain. She reached towards it, touched something hard, and yanked it out of her neck. She opened her hand to find a metal barb with a small grip on the end, like a toothpick-sized throwing knife. She found herself on her knees again, and couldn't remember kneeling.

"God damn it," she muttered, and slumped to the ground.

…

Reese's eyes flicked up from her work for a moment to look through the antenna scaffold. The two men on the ground had started to contort, their limbs pressing against their sides or twisting at strange angles. She lowered her gaze back to the repeater and connected a few more wires, then gave everything a quick glance-over.

"Alright, here we go." She reached to flip a switch when a sword pierced through the ice, missing her ear by a fraction of an inch. She yelped and dove to the ground, covering her head as a fist and a second blade pierced the ice close to the sword, shattering a hole in the ice dome. Hands seized the back of her hoodie and yanked her halfway out from her shelter. Reese grabbed the sides of the hole and wedged her feet against the inside of the opening. The hands jerked her back and the ice buckled, jabbing her fingers and her heels. She winced, clenching the ice harder with one hand while she reached into her pocket with the other, grabbing her still-cooling soldering iron.

"Piss off!"

Reese jammed the tool into one of the hands gripping her hoodie. Her attacker cried out in pain and released her, letting her fall to the ground. She scrambled back inside, lunged toward the machine and turned it on. A low thrum started, quickly increasing in pitch. Reese grabbed her board and lunged through the hole in the ice just in time for the machine to crackle with electricity and pop, ending the sound. The ice remained intact, but Reese felt a jolt of electricity zap through her and her knees buckled. Her stomach churned and she fell to one knee, breathing hard and slowly wrestling her nausea under control. Groans rose from around the plaza. Someone made a loud retching sound to Reese's right, drowning out the rest. Reese stood and looked around.

The Black Fang were visible now. A faunus man with a wolf's tail lay on his side in front of Reese clutching his hand where she had stabbed it. Across the square where the two villagers lay on the ground was a massive man with a thick sinewy tail in place of legs, big around as a tree where it joined his upper body. His tail lay coiled around the villagers, though it was now loose enough for them to crawl free. Reese turned in the direction of the retching to see a woman at the base of a building on her hands and knees. A mask stylized with eight eyes sat on her forehead and she supported herself on arms with a martial artist's lean musculature—six of them. Reese shrunk back for a second, unnerved by her appearance. Then she rolled her shoulders, steeling herself, and started towards the woman with a sway that was half bluster and half fatigue.

"What's wrong?" Reese asked. "The itsy-bitsy spider can't handle a little EMP? Or do you just have PTSD from all those times you wandered into a bug zapper?" The spider faunus drew a knife, but before she could use it Reese closed the distance and kicked it out of her hand. The spider faunus shouted and clutched her wrist. Reese gave her another kick, sending her rolling onto her side. She stared up at her, giving the huntress a menacing glare.

"I'll kill you for that," the woman growled up at Reese. "And I'll take the time to savor it."

Reese smirked at her and encased her in ice with her hoverboard. "That might have intimidated me earlier, but you're all nothing but a bunch of basic thugs without your toys."

Reese turned to check on the villagers. She had taken two steps when someone slammed her into a wall, making her drop her board. Her head exploded with stars and she slid to the ground. She looked up to find the wolf-tailed faunus holding a short sword inches from her ribs. He snarled with a voice like gravel.

"Thugs, maybe. But not cocky ones."

Reese flinched, but before the man could skewer her he leapt backwards. Two rifle shots whistled through the air where he had stood. Reese turned in the direction of the shots to see nothing but a pile of gravel in a collection of construction materials outside a storefront. Then some of the gravel stood, rippling, and changing color and texture as it resolved into Royce. He spun his rifle as he turned it back into a halberd and walked to stand between Reese and the wolf faunus. The wolf faunus sneered.

"Impressive semblance. Too bad you're too noisy to take advantage of it."

"You need to leave," Royce said. "Leave my village, my forest"—he glanced at Reese—"my friends, alone." He raised his halberd in a ready stance. The wolf faunus turned sideways, exposing less of his body to Royce, then pointed his sword at him.

"How many grimm have you fought, boy?" he asked

"I've killed hundreds."

The faunus made an approving sound. "Excellent. Now, how many people have you fought?"

Before Royce could answer, the man lunged, closing half the distance to Royce. Royce stabbed forward with his halberd's head spike, shuffled forward like a fencer, and stabbed again. Each time the wolf faunus dodged back, evading the thrusts by inches. He dodged to one side from the third thrust, and Royce let out a shout and chopped sideways with his axe head. The faunus threw himself down, rolling under the strike, springing out of the roll to stab at Royce. Royce thrust his forearm out, catching the blade on his mounted shield, then shoved the man back. With the space he created, Royce swept the butt of his halberd at the man's feet knocking him onto his back. He raised his halberd overhead and brought it down with a furious roar.

The wolf faunus rolled to the side and the halberd dug into the ground. He sprung to his feet in a blur and swung his sword down into Royce's arm just below the shoulder. The blow made a cracking sound and Royce cried out, dropping to one knee. The man drew his sword back and slashed at Royce's head. Royce jerked back and the blade sliced across his face as he fell away from the man. The man planted a boot on his chest.

"Amateur." He raised his sword.

Reese slammed into the man with the flat of her board, knocking him off Royce. She swung her board in a series of rapid swipes, and though she never landed a solid hit, the man was forced to parry or step back from each strike. He leapt back, and Reese seized the opening to load a dust crystal into her board and to leap forward onto it. She closed the distance and spun, turning her hoverboard into a ring of fire. The man grunted as it singed his arms, then rolled to the side. Reese u-turned back and placed herself between Royce and the wolf faunus, gripping her board like a bat. The wolf faunus brandished his sword. He clicked something in the grip, and it thrummed with sound.

"Do you really think you can beat me?" he asked.

"Do I look like someone who thinks when they fight?" Reese asked, her voice dripping with scorn.

The wolf faunus chuckled. A cracking sound came from Reese's left. The snake faunus had broken the spider faunus free from the ice. He looked up, then slithered over so that he, Reese, and the wolf faunus formed the points of a triangle in the plaza. Reese's eyes flicked back to where the snake faunus had lain and saw the two villagers lying still. She licked her lips, then clutched her board harder.

"Let's get this over with," she said.

Both faunus surged towards Reese. She steeled herself as the wolf faunus leapt to close the last few yards, soaring with his sword outstretched. Then the snake faunus slapped him out of the air as a volley of gunfire whizzed past. One round still grazed the wolf faunus' leg and he cursed in pain. Two rounds struck the snake faunus' tail while the rest bounced off one muscular shoulder. From down the street, Marta brandished a rifle, leading a band of villagers towards the plaza. With the Black Fang's stealth equipment neutralized, the villagers' numbers gave them renewed boldness.

The snake faunus let out a rumbling growl. With a speed unnatural for someone so large, he scooped up the wolf faunus with one arm, the spider faunus with the other, and fled the square heading toward the gate. Reese gave chase on her hoverboard, shouting for Nora as the fleeing infiltrators neared the wall. The snake faunus simply slithered his way up the walkway scaffold where the guards were thinnest, and surged over the wall. By the time Reese reached the top and looked out over the field, the only traces of his presence were a long furrow in the earth where he landed, and a section of flattened crops where he had fled into the field. Reese collapsed to lean on the top of the wall, panting from her fight and the climb up the steps.

Nora approached from along the battlements, grenade launcher drawn. "I think they're gone for now," she said. "The ones near the walls all bailed once they stopped being invisible."

"Cowards," Reese said. She inclined her head towards the fields. "Leg-less did the same thing when most of the village showed up."

Nora laughed. "Nothing livens up a party like the cavalry arriving." An uneasy look crossed Nora's face as she finished speaking. She turned to Reese, who wore the same expression.

"You don't think…"

"Flare, now." Reese said.

Nora chambered a flare grenade and fired skyward. It streaked up with a whistle and burst with white light. Unlike Royce's flare, it hung suspended from a small parachute, descending slow as a feather. They scanned the fields, searching them for activity. At first they saw nothing but the gentle sway of wheat in the night breeze. Then Nora's eyes narrowed, and she pointed to a spot two-thirds of the way to the tree line. She picked up a fallen rifle, looked through the scope, and paled. She handed the gun to Reese who looked at the same spot. Her stomach dropped.

There were at least thirty more Black Fang in that section of the field, armed for assault instead of infiltration, wielding combat rifles and heavy blades instead of pistols and short swords. But the worst difference sat at the front of the group: Several were handling a pack of komodos. They were the size of large dogs instead of their matured size, and they were leashed with thick chain, but they pulled insistently in the direction of the walls. Reese set the rifle down and slid to a seated position against the ramparts.

"Great," Reese said, "More friends."

Nora sat next to Reese and took stock of her ammunition. "I think we can give them a good fight, but that many will wear us down after that first attack. Besides, I bet there's more of them, and if those grimm get close, they'll break through the walls." She gave Reese a wan smile. "I don't suppose you have one last surprise in your bag of tricks."

Reese let out a weak laugh. "I might. Problem is, there's a good chance it'll also kill everyone in the village."

Both huntresses sat quiet for a moment.

"If it kills us," Nora said, "Will those guys die too?"

Reese chuckled. She drew two grenades designed for Nora's launcher from her pocket and held them out to her.

"Aim about ten yards past the near side of the field, then do the same to the fields outside the wall opposite the gate."

"I could make that second shot from here," Nora said, loading the grenades.

"Just don't miss. You do not want this going off inside the village."

Nora nodded, spun _Magnhild's_ drum into position, and exhaled. Then she rose, aimed, and fired. The shot flew in an arc. It was bright red, similar to the rounds that had helped slay the big komodo outside Razor Ridge. That was where the similarities ended.

The grenade hit the ground, sending out a wave of fire, then bounced forward a considerable distance, striking the ground and spewing flame again before bouncing once more. Many of the assembled soldiers had fled into the paths between fields by the time it reached them, but the flames still bathed several of them in the grenade's final bounces. The previously quiet fields erupted with panicked screams, and the hisses and roars of the attack grimm. Some of them sought cover in other sections of the fields, but most retreated to the woods as the flames spread through the crops with unnatural speed.

Nora stared at the flames with a mixture of awe and horror. "You do have something to put out the fires if they get too close to the walls, right?" she asked.

Reese stared at the distant shapes writhing in the flames or fleeing them. The fires had spread the length of the east wall and were steadily catching around the corners. She turned away, her face pale. "At this point I might not have enough."

Nora shrugged, then angled her launcher in a high arc towards the far wall.

"Might as well go for broke."

…

Royce woke the next day to sun striking his face and the smell of smoke in the air. He looked around the room, recognizing it as one of the spare bedrooms in Marta's house. As he stirred, a dull throbbing grew in his arm, and a sharp ache spread across his face, accompanied by a tightness, as if some of the skin there had shrunk. He brushed his fingertip along the tight skin and felt a line of stitches crossing his face just below his eyes.

He rose to a sitting position on the side of the bed and his left arm screamed as it shifted in his sling, making him clench his teeth. He looked down at himself to see someone had changed him into a t-shirt and a set of pajama pants with a tropical fish print. He made a huffing sound that was equal parts amusement and pain.

"Survey says we're not under enemy control," he said to himself. He stood and walked to the stairs, grimacing at the pain of simple movement. He followed the sound of voices towards the tea room and entered without knocking, passing into an ad hoc war room.

Marta sat at the far end of the table, chewing on a pipe as she scribbled something on a legal pad. Coco sat on the floor a few steps back from the table, wrist deep in _Belle Mort's_ internals. Blake sat next to Coco, thumbing through what looked like an old field journal, and supporting her forehead as if she was suffering from a strong headache. Nora had piled several cushions against a wall and lounged back against them, dozing with her hammer laid across her lap. Opposite Coco and Blake, Reese sat grinding a dust crystal into powder with a mortar and pestle. When she had finished, she poured the fine yellow powder into a second bowl, mixed it with the tip of a screwdriver, and poured the mixture into a small vial. They all turned towards Royce as he entered, and he felt a weight leave his shoulders.

"Thank the gods, we're all here," he said. He looked at Reese. "Thanks for the save last night."

Reese rubbed the back of her neck. "That was pretty awesome, huh? But it would have ended a lot differently if your grandma hadn't rallied the village so fast."

"Or if you hadn't given Nora a forest fire in a can," Blake said, never looking up from her journal.

Royce grinned and took a seat next to Reese. "So we won then."

"Absolutely not," Marta said. She looked up from her notepad and exhaled a narrow plume of smoke. "We only found five bodies in what's left of the fields. Twice as many of our people have died, and even more are injured. The walls are still intact, and there don't appear to be any stragglers hiding inside the village, but we're not capable of repelling another attack."

Royce paused for a moment, his mouth open. "But if you really hit them as hard as you said, they can't all be able to fight."

"I'm sure at least a few more that got clear of the fields aren't in fighting shape," Coco said, "But that still leaves too many to handle with the supplies we have left. Let's say another five of them are too injured to fight or support the others. That leaves about twenty lethal Black Fang who'll want revenge for killing their people and making them look stupid; not to mention that simply knowing they exist means we're a major threat to their plans. Consider that they almost certainly have more in reserve somewhere, and we're looking at a force that will overwhelm everyone that's still able to fight."

Royce looked at each person in the room one by one. None of them looked unwilling to fight, but there was a resigned air to their postures and expressions. "But…you guys are trained huntresses. I've seen Beacon students fight in the Vytal tournament, you're each worth five of one of our people in a fight."

"And the weakest of the people we're fighting are just as dangerous," Blake said. "They aren't normal White Fang, and we're fighting them outnumbered in a guerilla war, not an arena or an open field."

Coco closed her gun and began wiping her hands on a greasy rag. "We might be able to hold the village another night, but no longer than that. That wouldn't be a problem if someone hadn't detonated an EMP and fried anything we could have used to call Vale"—Blake elbowed Coco in the ribs, eliciting a glare from Coco—"but, I suppose we wouldn't be having this conversation if the Black Fang were still invisible."

Reese's cheeks turned pink and she folded her arms. "Can't say I didn't warn you."

She turned to look at Royce. "Anyway, we're still trying to figure out a plan. Could we make a run for that village you mentioned towards the Vacuo border?"

Marta let out a short grim laugh. "If one of you wants to sacrifice the rest of us to slow them down, sure. It's a three day journey if you hurry, which isn't possible transporting the entire village without motor vehicles."

"So we're stuck until Vale comes for us," Reese said.

"And there's the rub," Coco said. "We're supposed to check in at noon tomorrow. They'll tack on a six-hour margin of error to account for spotty broadcast conditions and possible delays on our part. Since Vale is stretched thin right now, I'd estimate another six hours to assess the situation, load a bullhead with supplies, and gather a new team. Add in five hours of flight at top speed, more if weather conditions aren't optimal, and they'll show up around five in the morning the day after tomorrow. All that assumes we get top priority and they fly directly to Crescent Hollow."

Silence followed as Coco's words sunk in. Blake set down her field journal and closed her eyes. Nora looked up and just stared at the far wall. Marta puffed her pipe, her face pensive. Coco laid her hand atop her gun and gently stroked it with one thumb. Reese's shoulders sagged. She rubbed at her forehead with her palm and ran a hand through her hair.

"So that's it?" Royce asked. "We're just going to hunker down and pray for a miracle, like a random huntsmen team wandering the woods?"

Reese sat up and struck her palm with her fist. "We forgot about our stash! It wasn't intended for a long siege, but we should have enough supplies to make it last at least one night, two if we're lucky."

"I didn't forget," Coco said. "I just don't think it's worth the risk. If we were just trying to sneak through the forest maybe we could pull it off, but that's a lot of stuff to haul back here. We won't be able to make the return trip with any sort of discretion."

Reese shook her head. "We don't need discretion. My sledge is shielded against static just like my hoverboard, so it should have survived the EMP, and my board's tow mode can haul ass if we don't worry about keeping a low profile on the way back. If the four of us can sneak out there, you three could ride the sledges on the way back and shoot anyone that comes too close."

"Those woods will be crawling with Black Fang."

"Maybe not," Blake said. Everyone turned to look at her. She continued:

"These people have dominated this region for months with no serious opposition. On top of that, most of them were the kind of faunus that aren't used to losing, especially not as badly as they did. Last night wasn't pretty, but we struck back harder than they were expecting. If I were leading them, I'd proceed with caution. They definitely have scouts observing us from the forest, but I doubt they have large numbers nearby. They might not attack tonight if we wanted to resupply."

"And they might attack anyway when they see us leave," Coco said.

"Which is why this plan is still not a great idea."

"Oh it's stupid as hell," Reese said. "Honestly, the last time I tried something remotely this gutsy, it…didn't work out." She exhaled, then continued, her voice unsteady. "I'm actually freaking out at the thought of doing this. But we're boned if we can't hold out until help arrives. I think this might be our best shot at surviving until then—if we all agree."

The other three huntresses sat in silence. Blake looked apprehensive, but she shrugged, conceding. "What do we have to lose?"

"One last night of waiting for them to make the first move," Coco said. "We've been reactive since Razor Ridge. I'd like to make the first move again." She turned to Nora. "What do you think, Valkyrie?"

"An insane plan with a high chance of mayhem," Nora said. "Do you really need to ask?"

Coco smirked. "Okay, we'll sneak out sometime tonight. Until then, let's work on making this plan highly risky instead of suicidal."

She turned to Royce. "You have any recommendations for getting to the old sawmill without anyone seeing us?"

Royce puffed up a bit. "With me leading the way, we'll get back before they can finish closing the gate."

Silence fell over the room. Marta watched Royce, her expression unreadable, while the four huntresses exchanged glances. Finally, Reese spoke up:

"We can't take you."

Royce stared. "But I can help. When you came to Crescent Hollow, you never noticed me spying on you between my camouflage semblance and my knowledge of the area."

"Can you use your semblance on other people?"

"No."

"Then you need to stay," Coco said. "You can't fight right now, and you know it. If they spot us, you'll be a liability in your state."

"I can still move, I can still shoot—"

"—but not at the same time!" snapped Coco.

"Royce, even if you weren't injured I saw everything last night," Reese said. "You're on my short-list for slaying grimm, but you're bad at fighting other people."

Reese let out a dry laugh. "You're kind of my opposite that way."

Royce stood silent for a bit. Then he sighed, and took a seat at the table.

"Give me a map. I can show you the best ways out there and back."

"There wouldn't happen to be a tunnel under the village to conceal our departure, would there?" asked Blake.

"No," said Royce. A glimmer of mischief crossed his face. "But I think I might know a way to throw them off."


	9. Chapter 9

CNBR Chapter 9:

Several hours later the sun began to sink below the trees. Team CNBR made one final check of their packs and equipment as they waited for dusk to fall. Reese examined her board for the seventh time, sitting back against a wall in the tea room. She looked at Blake, who sat in a corner with her legs folded, drumming her fingers against _Gambol Shroud's_ sheath.

"Hey Blake," she said. The dark-haired girl looked over, but didn't say anything. Reese continued:

"Last night you made some comment about that Faunus we questioned. You said he was another thing to worry about. I forgot about it with everything else that happened, but you sounded pretty worried. Care to explain?"

Blake rose and poured herself a cup of tea. She sat next to Reese, washed down an aspirin with the tea, and stared into her mug.

"Have you ever seen a reptile Faunus before?" she asked.

Reese started to reply, then paused. She'd once watched an ox Faunus toss Bolin forty feet out of a pit fight with his horns. Arslan had studied some advanced knife techniques under a lithe woman with falcon talons in place of fingernails. And of course, Sun Wukong had been a prominent figure at Haven. She'd met dozens of Faunus in Mistral over the years, mostly in the alleys and back-rooms of the kingdom's less reputable neighborhoods. But not once had she encountered scaly skin, legs replaced by tails, or poison fangs.

Reese shook her head. "No," she said, surprised.

"You've never seen one with insect or arachnid traits either, have you?"

"Definitely not, those would be hard to miss."

Blake sipped at her tea. "Why do you think that is? I doubt you spend much time among Mistral's nobility, so I'm sure you've seen your share of Faunus. Why do you think you never encountered any with the traits I mentioned until last night?"

Reese shrugged. "Mistral's better than Atlas, but they're not exactly leading the charge for Faunus rights. I guess Mistral just won't let them into the cities."

Blake rolled her eyes. "Right, because Mistral's run-down districts and criminal underworld obey every single mandate the kingdom passes."

"Okay, when you put it that way it sounds stupid, but you're suggesting that a bunch of Faunus in hiding, thieves, cons, mercenaries, and criminal organizations actually agreed on something, and the only time that happens is when—"

Reese stopped. Her eyebrows rose in comprehension.

"Now you get it," Blake said. "Some Faunus have it worse than others. They possess animal traits from species that people find more frightening than cats or rabbits. Faunus like you've met avoid them out of almost identical fears, or the desire to not be reviled by association. I've witnessed a lot of injustice in my life, personally, and as an observer, but the isolation and cruelty they suffer is in a class of its own. Can you imagine being driven from your home by Atlas soldiers, only to be banished further, sometimes violently, by those who were exiled alongside you? It's sad, and cruel, and tragic—and it inspires a dangerous desperation in those who suffer such persecution. The White Fang loves recruiting Faunus like that."

"They're ready-made fanatics," Reese said.

Blake nodded. "That's the main reason. The other is that their animal traits are often very useful. Greater physical strength and speed, poisons, camouflage abilities, the list goes on. I'll bet all the lien I own that lizard Faunus' arm has grown back when we see him again. It might not have all its muscle back, but he'll have it."

They both sat quietly for a few moments. Eventually, Reese coughed.

"What you're saying," Reese said, "Is that we've got an uphill battle ahead of us."

Blake sniffed and sipped her tea. "For someone so over the top, you have a remarkable gift for understatement."

…

The last rays of sun glowed red from behind the western trees, casting the forest's edge into gray and shadow. Combined with the ashes from the previous night's fire, Crescent Hollow and the surrounding fields resembled the cooling remnants of a massive campfire. High in the trees on the South side of the clearing, downwind of the village, the lingering scent of smoke reinforced that impression.

Sable coughed, raising a hand to stifle the noise. With two of her other hands, she hung from a branch, leaning out from the tree she stood in. A fourth hand held a pair of binoculars up to her eyes, while she clutched the wrist of her fifth hand with her sixth. She made an irritated sound as she stared at the village.

"I see five ways into the village from this side alone. Once the sun goes down, I can go in, head for the gate—"

"And get shot before you can open it?" a mellow bass voice asked. "Our other climbers are incapacitated in one way or another, so you'd be on your own, and they'll be guarding the gates. Maybe if our cloaking devices still worked, you could do it, but you'll just be one more casualty if you try now."

Sable looked up and scowled. "They'll ruin everything, Clay."

Higher up, the snake Faunus had coiled his tail around the trunk of the tree, the earth tone colors of his skin broken into patterns that helped him blend into the wood. A lazy smile spread across his face.

"Patience, Sable. I guarantee you they can't summon help now. Otherwise, our comrades closer to Vale would have reported incoming reinforcements. We have time to wait."

Sable made a disgusted sound, eliciting a chuckle from Clay, then turned back to watching the village.

"Our brothers and sisters were wounded or killed last night, and you act like nothing happened." Sable said. "What is wrong with you?"

"Oh, Sable." Clay wound his way down the tree and placed his hands on Sable's shoulders. He flexed his hands for a moment, and Sable flinched at the brief demonstration of his strength. "I feel the same way, it's just not time yet. Discipline is key. Ash keeps saying that, young one, but you don't listen."

"Ash wasn't too disciplined after she found out about Malcolm," Sable said.

"But she did compose herself. She doesn't want us caught off guard again, so we observe. Have faith, the huntresses will get their due in time. Especially the turncoat."

Sable began to smile, then noticed a flash of movement at the walls.

"Clay…"

Four figures cloaked in gray rappelled down the wall, landed in the ashes below, and began sprinting for the woods, keeping low to the ground. Sable stowed her binoculars and began to climb down. She jerked to a stop as Clay grabbed one of her wrists.

"Wait," he said.

Sable climbed back up and looked again. Farther along the wall, another group of four climbed over the wall and ran to a point in the trees several hundred yards to the right of the other group. A third group appeared and ran to a spot the same distance away on the opposite side of the first group. Two more groups of four ran from the each of the two gates. A couple minutes later, another pair of teams entered the woods on the North side of the clearing. Sable clenched all six of her fists, her fingernails carving grooves in the rubber covering the binoculars.

Clay let out a warm chuckle. "This just got fun."

…

"I don't get how you do it," Reese hissed. "This whole fast and silent thing is a frigging hoax."

"Whining about it isn't helping," Blake hissed back.

The trail Team CNBR followed was only wide enough for single-file movement, but thick vegetation growing on either side concealed it from the rest of the forest. The four huntresses moved along the trail, leaving large spaces between themselves to avoid collisions when Blake slowed or accelerated without warning. Shortly after night fell, Blake drew to a stop and unfolded the map Royce had marked.

"Okay," Blake said. "I don't think anyone's following us; our little ruse with the villagers worked for now. They'll start circling back soon, which means we need to go east to reach the sawmill. The next trail Royce marked should be about fifty yards that way through thick brush."

"How long does it look like it'll take?" Coco asked.

"Five or six minutes to get to the next hidden trail without leaving obvious signs; an hour for the rest if we don't run into anything that forces us to slow down."

"Then let's keep moving."

The four huntresses crept through the brush with agonizing slowness. Clouds blocked out the moon, casting the entire forest into near-darkness. Reese shuffled along, resting her hand on Blake's back to navigate the woods without tripping. The vegetation grew thicker on Royce's new trail than it did on the previous one, keeping them from maintaining their original pace.

When the finally came upon the sawmill, it was near midnight. They stopped and waited as Blake sat and observed, listening for the softest sound or the slightest bit of movement. After almost half an hour, Blake gestured with her hand, and the four of them followed her as they slipped inside the mill. Once inside, Reese retrieved the parts of her sledge and began to reassemble it, while the others went for the supply crates tucked behind a pile of lumber.

"Remember, take only what we need," Coco said. "Area denial and crowd control munitions, raw dust, and anything we might use to summon help faster. Anything else we can carry is a bonus."

Nora reached down and yanked one crate up, stumbling a little as she raised it over her head. The color drained from her face.

"I remember these being a lot heavier."

Nora's words sent everyone's pulse racing. The four huntresses whirled around, peering into the darkness for anyone watching, but all they saw were shadows and old tools. A chuckle rose from somewhere in the building.

"Typical huntress arrogance, I heard you coming a mile away. I'll give you points for hiding your little arsenal. If we hadn't anticipated your trail we would never have thought to search this building. I wonder, what does this toy do?"

A grenade broke through the glass in a window set high up on the wall. Blake was halfway up a ladder to a catwalk mounted on the opposite wall when it went off. There was a loud bang, and the room filled with thick smoke like water bursting through a dam.

Coco coughed violently, her lungs burning and her diaphragm aching as she struggled to get air. Elsewhere in the smoke, Nora let out heavy wheezing sounds, and Reese made a series of choking noises that sounded like the prelude to vomiting. Coco's eyes watered as she struggled to see through the haze. There was a loud crash as the sawmill doors swung open. She spun towards the sound and saw indistinct figures moving in the haze.

Coco growled and clicked the conversion switch on _Belle Mort_ , aiming its barrels at the figures in front of her. Its motor began to whine when two more Black Fang rushed her from the side. One leapt atop the gun, yanking the barrels towards the ground so most of the rounds struck the floor. The other struck her wrist with a collapsible baton, causing her to drop her gun. Coco grunted and stepped back, clutching her wrist, before surging forward again to throw a punch at the nearest attacker.

She brought one down with a solid hit to the jaw. Someone grabbed her good arm and tried to joint lock it, but she brought her heel down on his foot, then shoved him to the ground. Coco spun back, fists raised, but three rushed her at once. One tackled her, wrapping his arms around her knees and sending her crashing to the floor. The other two each took an arm, and pinned them to the ground. Coco thrashed against them, trying to break free, but their grip stayed firm, holding her in place. A crash came from her left, followed by an enraged roar.

Coco craned her head and peered through the smoke to see half a dozen Black Fang trying to subdue Nora, including the sinewy form of the snake Faunus. She struck one with her hammer, sending him flying into two more. She swung in a circle, forcing the rest to jump back. The snake Faunus drew in, arms raised to strike. Nora squared off against him and took a step forward. In that moment, his tail whipped behind her, curled around her rear ankle, and pulled, sending her sprawling on the ground.

Before she could stand, one silhouette darted in and snatched her hammer. Nora stood just in time for the rest of the group to rush her like a pack of wolves on a buffalo. There were several grunts of pain, all too male or low-pitched to be Nora, but they died out as more assailants piled in. The dogpile grew still, and all Coco could hear was angry labored breathing.

A pair of boots stopped in front of Coco. Someone grabbed her by the hair and yanked her to her knees, her arms still restrained. The smoke had cleared enough to make out a lithe figure standing in front of her, wings unfurling from her back like a living cape.

"Desperate and stupid are bad looks on you, sweetheart," the bat Faunus said. "I'll admit that trick with the villagers was inspired, but did you really think that would fool us for long?"

She leaned closer, pulling Coco's head back by her scalp. "I'll give you one chance to talk this out like civil adults."

Coco glared at the woman and bared her neck to her. "Bite me."

The woman sighed. "How very _original_."

The last thing Coco remembered was the woman yanking her head towards the ground and an explosion of pain.

…

More Black Fang soldiers had waited outside, watching for anyone who managed to escape the sawmill, but through sheer luck Blake had lost them in the tall grass for a few moments. She lay prone near the building, listening to them move. They had fanned out, searching in every direction from where they saw her enter the grass, except back the way she came.

Her fingers dug furrows in the earth as she fought to keep from panicking. The sounds of conflict had died inside the building, and her own ruse wouldn't work much longer. Either one of them would figure out what she had done and double back towards the building, or the group inside would emerge and trap her between the main force and the sentries. Someone's Faunus enhanced senses would find her and that would be it. Between her lingering pain and fatigue from the past few days' injuries, and the distance to the safety of the woods, she'd be lucky to last more than a minute before they overwhelmed her.

The grass rustled in a gradual cadence; the sound of a hunter stalking prey. It grew louder as someone moved towards Blake. Thoughts of Ruby and Weiss, Sun, Yang, and her parents flashed through Blake's mind. Her eyes teared, and she had to suppress a sob.

Then she rubbed her eyes on her sleeve, set her jaw, and tightened her grip on her weapons. She rose from the grass and found herself facing the ram-horned girl from Crescent Hollow, about five yards away. They attacked at the same time, trading strikes. Blake managed to avoid any major blows, but she tired quickly, letting the girl drive her back towards the sawmill. As she neared the wall, Blake lunged forward, stabbing with her katana to prod the girl into a slash from her cleaver. The ram-horned girl turned away the stab with one hand mace, and ducked under the cleaver slash, head-butting Blake in the ribs. Blake reeled from the strike, gasping for air, as the girl leapt towards her and brought her maces down. Blake managed to block both maces with her blades, and they stood straining against each other, weapons locked together. From behind the girl, Blake saw figures approach from the grass and woods beyond.

"No rifle-toting hicks to save you now," The girl said.

Blake pressed against the girl's weapons harder, but she felt her boots begin to slide on the dirt. The girl gave a shove, and Blake stumbled back, fighting to stay upright. The girl crouched, preparing to lunge at Blake.

But before she could attack, the wall of the sawmill exploded and sent her sprawling, burying her under a pile of boards. Reese rushed through the hole in the wall, stopping only long enough to plug it with shots of ice dust from her guns. Then she whipped around and dove into the tall grass alongside Blake, running east.

"Where," Blake said between gasps, "Are Coco and Nora?"

"I couldn't find them in the smoke," Reese said. Her eyes were wide and her voice pitched an octave higher than normal. "What do we do?"

"There's too many of them, all we can do is run and hide." Blake looked to their sides, and behind them. She could see at least five Black Fang coming through the grass, with more pouring out of the sawmill. Her lungs burned and fresh cramps attacked her injured ribs. She slowed to a stop, hunching over and resting her hands on her knees.

"You go," she said. "I'll try to slow them down. If you can reach the other cache, maybe you can get enough supplies to reach another village to the northeast; tell people what happened here."

"Screw that!" Reese said. "I can't do this alone, and even if I could, I wouldn't leave you with those psychos."

"I'll only slow you down right now! There's no point in both of us getting caught."

Reese locked eyes with Blake, her face stubborn and frightened. She looked back to see their pursuers drawing closer, rippling the grass like sharks just beneath the water's surface. Reese reassembled her hoverboard from her pistols and tossed it down.

"How's your balance?" she asked.

"It's good," Blake said.

Reese stomped on the board and it expanded into its larger tow configuration.

"Have you ever longboarded?"

"No."

"Wrong answer," Reese said, guiding Blake onto the back of the enlarged hoverboard. "You love longboarding. Before you joined up with the White Fang, you used to ride down twisty mountain roads fast enough to get speeding tickets. Just hang on, and lean when I lean."

Reese leapt onto the front of the board and stomped a second switch. Reese's board had been nimble in its original form. In its larger configuration, without heavy sledges hitched to it, the board shot off like a jet, both huntresses screaming. The front end bucked, almost throwing both of them off, then settled back down as they flew across the clearing. They went off a raised mound of earth, launching across a narrow section of the river, then landed and rapidly approached the forest.

"LEAN RIGHT!" Reese shouted.

They leaned, Blake placing one hand on Reese's shoulder for guidance and balance, and the board began to turn in a wide arc that missed the trees by a few yards. Their turn was so wide that they ended up curving back the way they came.

"You missed the trail," Blake shouted. "Slow down before you get us killed!"

"Would you rather get caught and tortured by a bunch of terrorists?" Reese snapped. "I'm not slowing down!"

"We have to; the trails curve too much to ride this fast."

"Then we won't take one."

Reese twisted her body and the board skidded, throwing up dirt and sliding until it reached the riverbank, nose pointed downstream. They shot forward again, racing alongside the river as more Black Fang pursued them. Gunfire whizzed by Blake's ears. She turned back and fired a few pistol shots from _Gambol Shroud_ with her free hand, but the shots did little to deter their pursuers.

"Heads up!" Reese shouted. Blake turned in time to duck under a low-hanging tree branch, the leaves brushing the back of her coat. Reese leaned with precise movements, weaving them through logs and exposed tree roots along the bank. Blake kept up with most of her motions, but after passing a particularly wide stump she leaned a bit too far, causing the board to fishtail, nearly throwing both of them off and slowing them for a few moments.

"This is stupid," Blake said. "Let's just take the river." She gripped Reese's shoulders with both hands.

"No! Don't—" Before Reese could finish, Blake leaned right, forcing Reese to lean with her to remain on the board, and they angled over the water. The moment they left the shore the board began to spin like a top with bottle rockets glued to it. They bounced across the water like a skipping stone, both huntresses screaming as they spun. Reese shut off the thrust and crouched, pulling Blake into a crouch alongside her. The spin came to a gradual stop in the middle of the river, forty feet of water on either side. They stood as they coasted along on the last of their momentum and the river's current, the sound of the water a firm whisper in the night. Reese rocked her hips until the board was pointed downstream again. She drew back her hood and stared down the river, running her hands through her hair in an anxious gesture.

"What just happened?" Blake asked, her ears pressed flat against her skull.

" _You_ screwed us!" Reese said, turning back to Blake. "Hoverboards work great over solid surfaces because they have something simple to push against, but water shifts too much to allow stable movement. We can float with the current, but if we add any propulsion we'll slide like a car driving at full speed over ice, so now we're stuck drifting out here until they catch up to us."

Blake threw up her hands in frustration. "I'm sorry I don't have extensive knowledge of all your science projects, but riding along the shore was a crash waiting to happen!"

"I didn't hear you come up with anything better."

A sound like fireworks crossed with jumping fish came from a spot just ahead of the board as a shot missed them and ricocheted off the water. Blake turned and fired at the gunman, but he ducked behind a tree before she could hit him. As she loaded a new magazine she saw the rest of the Black Fang farther down the bank, closing fast.

"Alright," Blake said. "They'll catch up to us by the time we swim to shore. If we stay on the river they'll pick us off from the riverbank or swim out to get us. Do you have anything that can give us some breathing room?"

Reese started rummaging through her pack. "I may have one last _Gadget Ex Machina_ left." She drew out a few of Nora's grenades and a roll of tape. She bundled the grenades together with the tape, then produced an assortment of dust crystals and wrapped them into the bundle. She tore off the end of the tape with her teeth, pressed it into place, and handed Blake the bundle.

"How's your throwing arm?" she asked.

"Which bank of the river do you want me to hit?" Blake said.

"Neither, it's going upstream; the farther the better."

Blake raised an eyebrow, but took the bundle. She took a section of _Gambol Shroud's_ ribbon the length of her arm span, folded it in half, and placed Reese's bundle in the fold. Reese gave the makeshift sling an approving nod and struck something on the bundle with her screwdriver.

"Now!"

Blake swung the sling in a circle over her head, once, twice, three times. On the fourth revolution, she released one end of the ribbon and sent the makeshift bomb flying upstream. Their assembled pursuers watched it arc through the air and stepped back, wary. It landed with a splash, but nothing happened. Blake turned to see Reese crouched, looking over her shoulder at where the bomb had landed. She gave Reese an anxious look.

"What now?" Blake asked.

"About that," Reese said. "Not to cleave to stereotypes, but surfing's popular in Menagerie, right?"

Blake's eyebrows shot up, and she matched Reese's posture just in time for the river behind them to erupt in a geyser of water. The river surged up onto the bank, knocking over those who stood on the shore. A large wave rose up behind them and rushed forward along the river. It rose high enough to wet the branches hanging over the bank, and in the relatively narrow section of the river, it moved like a speeding freight train.

"Hold on to your butt!" Reese shouted.

The wave picked them up and shot them down the river, only just slower than the board's own propulsion. Blake and Reese slowly rose, standing with their knees slightly bent. The water rumbled around them, and a light spray preceding the wave misted their backs. The rushing wind blew back their hair, glistening in the spray as it trailed behind them. Reese whooped, turned to face upstream, and raised her arms to give the Black Fang a pair of rude hand gestures.

"This rocks!" Reese said, facing forward again. "It's like surfing a tidal bore, but better."

She leaned to one side, skimming around a log floating in the water with casual precision. Blake mirrored her movements, occasionally glancing over her shoulder.

"How long do you think we can keep this up?" She asked. "We're losing them for now, but they'll catch up sooner or later."

"Honestly?" Reese said, "I don't know. But we haven't lost much momentum, so I'd say we have enough time to lose them, head to shore, and double back to find the others."

Reese weaved the board around a sandbar and a few rocks that rose from the water. Blake looked back again and saw that they'd lost their pursuers. She started to turn forward, then paused, looking at the riverbank. The trees seemed to be passing by quicker, and they were gradually thinning along both sides of the river. She turned to Reese.

"Are we moving faster?" she asked.

Reese blinked, surprised. "We are. The current's picking up. We must be headed back down into the valley for it to—WHOA!"

Reese and Blake juked the board, zig-zagging through a cluster of exposed rocks as they went around a bend in the river. After they had navigated the obstacles Blake began to say something, then stopped. Her ears twitched and her face grew pale.

"Do you hear that?" she asked in small voice.

Reese listened, only half-focusing as she guided them around another curve in the river and away from a growing number of rocks. Then she heard it: A constant low roar somewhere in the distance, slowly growing louder. Reese's stomach dropped.

"Hey Blake?"

"Yes?"

"They tossed you guys off a cliff in your initiation at Beacon, right?"

Sweat began to bead on Blake's brow despite the cool night air. "That's right."

Reese gave Blake a nervous laugh. "You have any pointers for sticking the landing?"

The current took them around another bend. The river widened a bit and more rocks appeared, more numerous than before. Ahead of them lay a scenic view of the forests, hills, and valleys of the region…beneath which lay a line of white frothy foam where the river flowed over a roaring waterfall. Both huntresses froze for a moment, then Blake shook Reese's shoulders.

"Left, left, LEFT!"

Reese shook her head and cut the board hard to the left, travelling at an angle to the artificial wave. They made it halfway to shore, when a thick cluster of rocks rose from the water. She snaked in and around the rocks, but they grew too dense for the larger board to navigate. She clipped one, and the board pitched, tossing Blake into the river with a yelp and a splash. Reese lurched back and forth, arms windmilling, as she tried to correct the board. She managed to get it mostly steady, only for her to ride nose-first into a rock.

Reese sailed over the rock and plunged into the water. She fought to keep from gasping in shock at the sudden piercing cold, and the painful burn of water travelling up her nose. She tucked into a ball as she went under, covering her head and neck with her arms. The current swept her along, battering her shoulders, back, legs, and knuckles as she struck the riverbed and more rocks. She felt the soles of her boots touch the riverbed and kicked, shooting up to break the surface. She gasped for air, trying to fight the current. A few feet away, her hoverboard floated by. She swam to it and seized it in a death grip, fumbling with it in a panicked attempt to get away from the edge of the falls. The roar of the waterfall grew louder as the white lip of the falls drew closer.

Then it faded to almost nothing as she went out into thin air.


	10. Chapter 10

CNBR Chapter 10:

Reese woke to a sharp pain in her chest. She moaned and rolled onto her back, gingerly hugging herself. A damp odor filled her nose; moss and mud, with a hint of animal musk. A sheen of moisture clung to her exposed skin, and her clothes were so soaked with water and mud that the cold she felt seemed to have weight, pinning her to the ground. There was a foul taste in her mouth, like rancid food and silt. She shivered and hugged herself tighter, wincing when she put too much pressure on her chest. Somewhere in the dark someone coughed. Reese opened her eyes to absolute darkness. She propped herself up on one elbow and peered towards the sound.

"Blake?" she asked, her voice trembling. "Is that you?"

"Yeah," Blake said, her voice a low rasp.

"Do you have my pack?"

"I do."

Reese took a deep breath, trying to calm herself. "There should be some glow sticks in a pocket in the main compartment."

The bag zipped and its contents rustled. A few moments later Reese heard a pair of cracks and Blake appeared in the gloom, a stick in each hand, lying sprawled against the wall of their shelter. Her clothes were smeared with broad splatters of mud, and the green light gave her a pallid, sickly look. She rose, wobbling a bit as she did so, her knees bent a little to avoid striking her head on the ceiling. She wedged one stick in the ceiling, then sat back against the wall of their shelter and shivered.

The room wasn't large. It had the area of a six-person tent, with an irregular, oblong layout. The floor was made of packed earth, though the top layer was still damp enough to smear mud onto anything that touched it, and it sloped down to a pool of water at either end of the room. The walls and ceiling consisted of logs and branches held together with more mud, and the low ceiling was dome-shaped.

Reese rubbed her brow, trying to stave away the groggy feeling in her head. "Where are we?" she asked.

"A Majava lodge a few miles downstream from the waterfall," Blake said.

Reese gave Blake a blank stare.

"Beaver Grimm," Blake said. "They're only found in Vale and the southern parts of Atlas. This lodge looked like it was abandoned a long time ago, and we needed a place to hide before the Fang caught up to us. They don't seem like the type of people to assume we're dead just because they can't find our bodies."

Reese nodded. "How did we get here, and"—she swallowed and grimaced—"why does it taste like something died in my mouth?"

Blake raised her hand and brushed away a damp lock of hair plastered to her forehead. "After I went over the falls, I managed to climb onto a rock in the middle of the river. I realized something was wrong when I found your board drifting before I found you. I made it to shore, went upstream a bit, and found you floating face down in the water. A strap on your pack caught on a tree limb that fell into the river. That probably saved your life because I don't think CPR would have worked if I had found you any later. You threw up a lot of water."

A sheepish look crossed her face. "I might have broken a couple of your ribs in the process. Sorry about that."

Reese waved her hand in a weak, dismissive gesture. "Hey, it beats drowning. What happened next?"

"You passed out afterwards, but you were still breathing, so I tried to move you. I couldn't carry you fast on foot and I was afraid of leaving tracks, so I laid you over your board, used it as a lifesaver for the both of us, and floated downstream for a while. I found this place, checked to make sure there wasn't anything hiding inside, and brought us in. That was about ten minutes ago."

Reese stared at the floor, silent.

"Do you think they're okay?" she finally asked.

Blake's shoulders sagged. "I don't know, but we've got our own problems to worry about. We're both running low on Aura, and we'll probably develop hypothermia if we don't get warm and dry soon. I'd start a fire, but smoke coming out of a giant beaver lodge tends to attract attention."

Blake shivered again and drew her coat around herself. Reese eased onto her hands and knees with a grimace, and crawled over to her pack. She rummaged through it and removed several items before she produced a sealed plastic package, and a thick nylon pouch the size of a large folded laptop, a buckle fastening one end. She opened the package and unfolded a large plastic ground cloth on the floor.

"It might not be warm," Reese said, "but it'll be dry."

A faint smile touched Blake's lips. "Do you have an electric heater in there?"

"No, but my dry pouch has the next best thing."

Reese undid the buckle and unrolled the pouch's opening. She laid two changes of clothes, a camp towel, and a folded survival blanket on the ground cloth. Blake raised an eyebrow.

"I'm surprised—thankful, but surprised—you have all this."

Reese shrugged. "A lot of what my team leader from Mistral tells me goes in one ear and out the other, but after one of my teammates had a near-miss with frostbite, I paid attention to her emergency equipment checklist. It's not as good as a fire, but it should work."

Blake stood, staggering a bit, and walked to a section of the lodge where some branches protruded from the wall and ceiling. She hung her coat on one. Then she pulled off both of her boots and hung them upside down, hooking their toes over the branches. Then she reached for the hem of her shirt, pulled up—

Reese blushed and quickly turned around, listening for a safe moment to turn back. She slowly pulled off her sweatshirt, drawing out the action as long as she could. She dropped it on the floor, where it created a small puddle. She shivered, folded her arms, and pulled the ends of her shirtsleeves over her hands, eyeing the layer she had just discarded. Behind her, she heard the ground cloth crinkle as Blake stepped onto it.

"You take surviving an ambush and falling down a waterfall in stride, but changing in front of another girl you have trouble with?" Blake's voice sounded slightly amused.

"I wouldn't say I took the waterfall in stride," Reese said.

"If you want, I promise I'll close my eyes until you're finished."

"Ha-ha," Reese said. She looked over her shoulder to see Blake dressed in sweatpants and a dark thermal top lying down on the ground cloth, her eyes closed and an arm tucked under her head. Reese quickly hung her wet clothes, dried herself as best she could, and slipped into a set of dry clothes identical to Blake's. Reese lay down next to Blake and pulled the towel over herself. Blake cracked an eye open.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm a little shorter than you," Reese said. "I can use the towel so you can use the blanket."

"That's stupid, you'll stay cold."

"I'll be fine."

Blake pursed her lips for a moment. Then she yanked the towel off Reese and tossed it onto one of the protruding branches. Reese sat up and began to protest, but Blake gently pushed her down and spread the silver thermal blanket over both of them. She turned the smaller huntress onto her side and pressed against her back, draping an arm over her waist.

"Feel warmer?"

Reese relaxed a little and nodded. "You're very…comfortable with this situation."

"This is not the first time I've had to share body heat with someone to stay warm. Spend enough time in the White Fang, and you get used to sacrificing modesty and personal space when the need arises. That said, I'd prefer that what happens in the Grimm nest, stays in the Grimm nest. I know a guy who will never let me hear the end of it if he finds out I spent the night cuddling another girl."

Reese let out a quiet snort. The room was silent for a minute, save for the sound of their breathing and the low rumble of the river outside.

"This feels wrong," Reese said, quiet. "We don't have time for this, we need to find the others."

"We aren't in any condition to help them. The people who attacked us would tear us apart right now without breaking a sweat. Catching our breath is the best way for us to help Coco and Nora."

Reese turned over and met Blake's eyes, shining amber in the gloom. "It feels like an excuse."

"It does," Blake said. "But that doesn't mean it's not true."

"But they could be hurting them! Or they might…" Reese trailed off, looking down.

"There are two possible scenarios," Blake said. "Coco and Nora are tough. If they're alive, they can handle themselves until we can help them, even if it gets bad."

Blake took a deep breath. "If they're dead, they'll still be dead later."

Reese started to say something when a loud crash sounded from somewhere outside their shelter. Both girls flinched at the sound and wrapped their arms around each other. Reese buried her face in Blake's shoulder and let out a tiny whimper. Blake didn't make a sound, but she dug her fingers into Reese's back, bunching up fistfuls of her shirt. The noise came several more times, sometimes closer, sometimes farther away. Eventually the forest outside grew still and both girls lay frozen, listening to every tiny sound that penetrated their shelter with paranoid intensity, before they eventually succumbed to fatigue and fell into fitful sleep.

…

Coco stirred, roused by a splitting headache. She groaned and opened her eyes, only to see a pitch black void. She jolted awake and her breathing grew quick and shallow. For a few moments she fought the urge to scream.

 _Eldest Brother, I'm blind!_ she thought.

Then Coco noticed a dim glow below eye level some distance away: light coming through beneath a door. Her eyes slowly adjusted to the scant light until she could see the vague outline of her own body, and some other shapes obscured by the gloom. She sighed, relieved. Feeling a glimmer of encouragement, she assessed what she could in the meager light:

She knelt on a hard cold floor that made her knees ache, and her back rested against a wall of identical construction. She tried to move her arms and found them bound above her head at the wrists, suspended by a long chain. She tried to pull herself up, then hissed in pain as the cuffs around her wrists bit deep into her skin. Water dripped from somewhere above her, dulling her headache the barest sliver as it froze her scalp. Coco sat on her heels and ground her teeth in frustration.

A groan came from her right. Coco turned to see a silhouette a few yards away in the darkness restrained in the same position that she was. Though she couldn't make out much detail, the person appeared to have hair falling just past her ears.

"Nora?" Coco said, her voice hoarse. "Nora is that you?" Coco heard chains move, but the figure didn't respond. She tried to shuffle closer, but she jerked to a halt with a _clink_ after a few inches, her ankles fastened to the wall behind her with shackles.

"Nora wake up, we need to get out of here!"

Coco was debating shouting at Nora to wake her up, when a lock turned in the door with a loud _clunk_. The door opened and light flooded the room, blinding Coco, making her flinch and turn away. She heard the door close, and the hum of ceiling lights flicking to life. She cracked open her eyes and confirmed that her fellow prisoner was Nora. Her head hung forward, her hair obscuring her face. Her arms were covered in scrapes, but she otherwise appeared unharmed.

Footsteps approached, and Coco turned to see the bat-winged Faunus walking towards her. The lizard Faunus followed close behind her, dressed in a sleeveless tunic. His left arm looked shriveled, like someone had tried to cook it over a fire, but it moved normally when the man folded his arms in front of him. The woman stopped in front of Coco and crouched so she was at eye level.

"How are you feeling?" she asked.

"Kind of weird," Coco said. "I'm locked in a damp jail cell, I have a massive headache, and I don't remember the last several hours. It's like the morning after my senior prom all over again."

The man growled, but the woman tittered.

"Oh _good_ ," the woman said, her voice eager. "You didn't lose your spunk."

"I can fix that," the lizard Faunus said.

"Don't...Sass in the wild irritates me, but sass in captivity is delightful."

She moved closer and stroked Coco's hair back from her face. "It's so satisfying to break them when they fight back."

"So you enjoy restraint _and_ pain," Coco said. She grinned at the woman. "Listen, I talk a big game, but my thirst for excitement begins and ends with hunting Grimm. I'm a red wine and rose petals kind of girl."

The woman let out a warm chuckle. "So mouthy. Appropriate, since you were the one giving orders in the village. As the leader of your merry band, would you care to explain why you're operating so deep in the wilderness?"

Coco tilted her head back and sniffed at the woman. "You're going to ask about my business but you won't even show your face? How rude."

The woman reached up and pulled her mask away from her face. She was older than Coco, but still young, somewhere in her late twenties. Dull brown hair fell to somewhere between her ears and her shoulders, framing a face with a debutante's features. A jagged scar covered most of her right cheek, stretching back until it disappeared under her hair. She gave Coco an easy smile.

"You can call me Ash. The gentleman behind me is Karah. Now that you know us, you can introduce yourself and tell us why Vale sent you out here."

Coco squared her shoulders as best she could and looked Ash in the eye. "My name is Coco Adel, my huntress license number is three-one-six-six-five-nine-one-four-five, and we were assigned to perform a search-and-destroy to clear out the Grimm in the region."

The slap cracked like a gunshot in the cell and Coco's head whipped to one side. Ash stretched her wrist, limbering up for another strike.

"Liar," she said, with a tone of amicable reproach. "Huntsmen rarely travel to this region. Vale is held together by threads right now, and you expect me to believe that they've finally decided to help these people? Let's try again; why are you here?"

Coco turned back to Ash, her left cheek bright red. She let out a heavy sigh and stared at the floor.

"You're right, that's not why we're here. We were actually foraging for rare mushrooms. There are chefs in Mistral who'll pay a fortune for the right kind of—AH!"

Ash slapped Coco again, leaving a handprint that stretched from her jaw to her temple. A welt rose in the middle of her cheek. When Coco turned back to Ash, her eyes burned with fury.

"This is amusing," Ash drawled. "But despite the fun I'd have dragging this out, my companions would prefer to receive answers sooner rather than later."

Coco lunged at Ash, rattling her chains as they jerked her to a halt.

"Fine!" she shouted. "You know what we were doing? We were hired by a group of Faunus in Vale who were tired of you giving them a bad name. I don't blame them. If people associated me with a bunch of psychopathic cowards and freaks too scared to fight fair, I wouldn't want you around either!"

Karah lunged past Ash and landed a fist on Coco's jaw so hard her head struck the wall. Spots filled her vision and she tasted copper. She spat on the ground and worked her jaw, then started laughing.

"Seriously?" she said, looking up at him. "That's how hard your good arm can hit? No wonder four huntresses and a bunch of farmers kicked your asses."

Karah drew a knife and pressed Coco against the wall. Coco grimaced, staring him down as he brandished the knife.

"You're not smiling anymore," he said, flourishing the knife. "Would you like some help with that?"

Ash's wings flapped irritably. "Enough Karah, she's just saying lies to provoke you. You said yourself they didn't sound certain the White Fang was operating in this region."

Karah hesitated, but didn't lower the knife. Coco sneered at him.

"That's right, listen to the Bride of Dracula like a good little—"

"Coco, stop antagonizing them!"

Coco looked to her right. Nora was watching the rest of them with a weary expression. Her eyes were lidded and her face was scratched. One corner of her mouth twitched up.

"Just because he was dumb enough to lose his own arm doesn't mean you have to rub it in."

Karah let go of Coco and moved towards Nora, but Ash grabbed him by the shoulder before he could touch her. She had a finger pressed to her ear, and she nodded as if receiving instructions. Her wings flapped, restless. She lowered her hand and looked at Karah.

"There's a problem."

"They can wait for us." Karah said.

"It's in the pens. Besides"—she nodded towards Coco and Nora—"they clearly aren't ready to talk. We'll come back once they've had some time to think."

Karah grumbled, but sheathed his knife and left the room, Ash following close behind him.

"Hey Ash," Coco said. The Faunus woman turned back to look at Coco.

"If it's not too much trouble, could you keep an eye out for my hat?"

The door shut, plunging the cell into near-darkness again. Coco heard Nora sigh and the clink of metal.

"I understand putting up a strong front," Nora said. "But I think you overdid it a little."

"You made fun of his arm," said Coco.

"To take some of the heat off of you!"

"I had everything under control."

Nora made an irritated sound. "Whatever. Do you have a plan?"

Coco pressed her face against the wall, letting the cool stone dull the pain a bit. "I'm working on it. Did you see anything on the way in?"

"No, they knocked me out. But before they did, I didn't see them grab anyone else. Reese and Blake might have gotten away."

Coco sniffed. "Great, _one huntress_. We can expect the cavalry any day now."

Nora puffed, blowing some of her bangs out of her face.

"Coco," Nora said. "You're not wrong, you're just a bitch."


	11. Chapter 11

After a few hours of fitful sleep, Blake and Reese spread their belongings on the ground cloth to take stock of their supplies.

"I have four pistol magazines and a set of binoculars," Blake said. "There are some other odds and ends, but that's all I have that might be useful for a fight. What about you?"

"My hoverboard can keep going for a while," Reese said, crouching over her gear. "But I'm out of raw Dust, both powder and crystals. I've got a few different kinds of Dust ammunition, but not much of any one type. Aside from my first aid kit, that's it."

Reese frowned. "Even if we had more gear, where would we start? We can't fight people if we can't find them."

Blake stroked her chin. "That might not be a serious problem."

"Wouldn't the trail be cold by now?" Reese asked. "Either way, we'd still have to backtrack to the mill."

"Not necessarily. When we first arrived there weren't a whole lot of Grimm around. We only saw a few Beowolves on the hike to Crescent Hollow and all of them were alone. Barely any were near the village, except during the attack. Even when we went ranging with Royce, we didn't encounter any significant number all at once. Doesn't that seem odd, especially since there should have been some lingering around the other villages?"

"You seem to think so."

"Negative emotions attract Grimm, that's basic Huntsman knowledge. Not just fear like there would have been around the attacked villages, but hatred, resentment, contempt, cruelty…our friends in the splinter group have all that in spades."

Reese's face grew pale. "What are you saying?"

"It's simple," Blake said. "We follow the Grimm, and we'll find where the splinter group is hiding."

Reese stood, almost knocking her head on the ceiling. She paced back and forth in the narrow space, running her hands through her hair.

"No," she said. "No, no, no, there has got to be a better way, a—smarter way."

Blake frowned, rising to her feet. "Unless you can track them by scent, or you think you can pick up the trail from the mill, we don't have a better option."

"Looking for a band of violent fanatics isn't dangerous enough, you want to add a bunch of frenzied Grimm to the mix."

"It comes with the territory. Besides, I'm used to avoiding Grimm. If you follow my lead, they'll never notice us."

"Easy for you to say, I wasn't a guerilla before I was old enough to drive!"

Reese had never seen anger explode so silently. In the space of a breath, Blake surged across the room and seized Reese by her shirt collar, with no sound but a few light footsteps. Her shoulders heaved and her nostrils flared as she suppressed the urge to shout. When Blake spoke, she wasn't loud, but her voice shook with suppressed anger, like a volcano threatening to erupt:

"Why are you here?"

Reese glared at Blake, prying at her hands. "I don't know, because Vale wanted to avoid risking their own huntsmen? You could train another huntress to do almost everything I've done on this mission."

Blake's grip tightened and she shook Reese a little. "I know why you were invited, I want to know why you said ' _Yes_ '. I have been patient with you far longer than Coco and Nora have because I'm dealing with my own baggage right now, and I know how much that sucks. I thought you were just a little rattled after the fight with that thing outside Razor Ridge, but you really can't handle fighting a few Grimm, our _primary_ job responsibility. If you said 'No', or quit being a Huntress you wouldn't be in this situation, but you came anyway, so why are you here?"

"I fucked up!" Reese said, her voice cracking. She looked down and rubbed at her eyes. Her body shook as she took long shuddering breaths. When she spoke again her voice was quiet:

"I fucked up real bad. At Beacon, when we were helping people get back to the docks, I did something cocky and I almost got myself and my team leader killed. We got out, but she couldn't fight for a few weeks. She's barely talked to me since. She was never super warm and fuzzy, but she's never been this distant either.

"That wouldn't be so bad, but I only left the city once between Beacon and coming here. We were supposed to do some light training, take care of a few stray Grimm outside the walls. When we got within range, I froze again. It was a wide open field at the foot of the cliffs, plenty of room to move and not many Grimm. Perfect conditions for a skirmish and all I could do was fall to my knees and shake like a leaf."

Reese struggled to meet Blake's eyes, but couldn't will herself to do it. She settled for staring past her at one of the walls. When Blake didn't say anything else, she continued:

"I'm lost. I've never been this afraid of anything in my life, and while I've made plenty of stupid decisions, they've never hurt other people. When Vale asked me to help, I thought if I said 'Yes' I could prove that I'm not broken, that I'm not some screw-up, that I can handle being a huntress. I guess I was wrong."

Blake gave Reese an unreadable look, then set her down. She sat down, leaning against the wall, and patted the spot on the ground next to her. Reese hesitantly sat next to Blake, who just stared at the opposite wall and sipped from her canteen. After a long tense silence, she spoke:

"My best friend lost her arm that night at Beacon because of me. I got in a fight I couldn't win, she tried to save me, and we almost died. I'm not telling you this because I think we had it worse. I'm telling you because I want you to know that I understand. Guilt and fear can make you choose questionable solutions to your problems. I still think agreeing to join a covert mission so you could prove something was a _very_ stupid decision, but chewing you out won't help anyone. And despite that stupid decision, you're not a complete screw-up. You fought well in Crescent Hollow."

Blake turned to Reese. "I won't lie, our odds aren't great. But people need us right now. We can save Coco, Nora, and everyone in the village, but I need you to hold it together. I need the Reese that pushed me to my limits in the Vytal festival, the one that decided spelunking unassisted was a sound life choice. Do you think you can manage that?"

"I kind of bit off more than I could chew both those times," Reese muttered.

Blake shrugged. "I'll take what I can get."

"You suck at giving pep talks."

"It could be worse. I could be wearing some asinine hat."

Reese laughed despite herself. The she pressed her lips together and gave Blake a slow nod. Blake gave her hand a squeeze and smiled a little when Reese returned the pressure.

Reese exhaled, letting her head roll back against the wall. "Okay," she said. "But there's another problem: How do we know which Grimm to follow? If we pick the wrong one, we could end up going the wrong way because it was stalking some random villager trying to escape from Crescent Hollow."

Blake frowned for a moment. Then she rose, walked towards her pack, and withdrew a folded map, its sections stuck together by their fall in the river. She unfolded it, taking care not to damage it as she peeled the folds apart, and spread it open on the ground cloth. She crouched over the map and traced her finger along it, searching.

"Let's think about this," Blake said. "These people might believe what they're doing is right, but they'd still be aware of their own negative emotions. They'd want to establish a base somewhere easily defensible against any Grimm that sniff them out. It would have to be somewhere they could easily hide a significant number of people, possibly with space for training."

"Don't forget that they somehow managed to leash those ugly lizard Grimm," Reese said, moving closer to examine the map. "Assuming they didn't pick them up just before the attack, they'd need a place secure enough to keep them contained. Remember what Royce told us, their venom could probably wreck any cage you put them in."

Blake nodded. "We're looking for a place that's hidden away, easy to defend, and able to withstand heavy assault, inside and out..."

Blake scanned the map. Her eyes drifted downstream from the sawmill, then south of the river, where the land rose from the valley again. As the elevation increased, the map showed the forest growing denser. Blake's eyes fell on an old trail cutting through the trees, leading out of the region. A thin line branched off from the trail, heading southwest before ending in a pair of crossed pickaxes.

The two huntresses looked up and met each other's eyes.

"It's way off the beaten path, and it would make a kickass bunker," Reese said.

"There'd be a lot of old tunnels and mine shafts to contain their pets," Blake said. She grimaced.

"What is it?" Reese asked.

"Team RWBY didn't have the greatest track record operating underground."

…

Shortly afterwards, Blake and Reese loaded their almost-dry huntress clothing and the towel into the dry pouch, and swam out onto the bank of the river. Reese had to hold the almost-dead glow stick to light her way through the short submerged tunnel, which looked like the inside of the world's most menacing wicker basket, the branches reaching out to scrape her hands or tug at her clothes. But in seconds, pale dim light illuminated the entrance from outside. She swam through it and surfaced into pre-dawn twilight.

They dried and changed under an overhang, formed where high waters had eroded much of the dirt from beneath the roots of a tree on the riverbank. Blake listened to the forest for a few minutes, her ears twitching. Birds chirped and flit about the trees, and a small animal moved through the brush somewhere nearby. The soft rumble of the river obscured anything she might have heard across the water. Unable to hear anything suspicious, she led the climb up the bank and through the foliage that lined the top.

A few minutes into the forest, they saw the aftermath of the previous night's sounds. Something had rampaged through the forest. Pale splintered wood stuck up from the stumps of fallen trees, and claw marks gouged those that remained standing. The destruction followed a winding path that expanded to small clearings in some places, and collapsed to a trail three-persons wide in others. Blake looked over her shoulder at Reese.

"Just stay close," she said, her tone neutral. "We'll be fine."

…

The ringing started an hour after Ash left and it never stopped. It had been so low Coco had mistaken it for a delayed consequence of the blows to her head. But as the hours ticked by it gradually increased in volume, eventually drawing complaints from Nora. It peaked at a volume that was disruptive, but not quite painful, then faded again. When Coco began to nod off, the volume would rise again, dragging her back to an increasingly groggy wakefulness as the level of noise ebbed and flowed. So when Ash returned to the cell, Coco wasn't sure if she was imagining the woman's presence until she raised a bottle of water to Coco's lips.

Coco jerked back, spitting out the water. "What the hell are you doing?"

"Hydrating the prisoner," Ash said, her head tilted to one side. "I can't question you if your throat is too dry to speak."

"Well aren't you altruistic?"

Ash sighed. "If I wanted to kill you I wouldn't need to poison you, and truth drugs are a myth. Stop being tiresome and drink."

Coco stared at her for a moment, trying to find a hole in Ash's logic, but had trouble finding one. Partially because she couldn't find an angle, and partially because the lack of sleep made it hard to think or care, she leaned forward and parted her lips. The water was warm and tasted of iron, but Coco had to fight to conceal how much she relished every mouthful. After Ash let Coco drink half the bottle, she capped it and stood back.

"Anything on your mind you'd like to share?" She asked.

"I'm not sure I trust a maid to get my thoughts to the front desk," Coco said, adopting a haughty mocking tone. "But so long as you're asking, room service was adequate, but noise levels from the other guests were unacceptable. I didn't sleep a wink last night."

Ash rolled her eyes. "Karah said sleep deprivation might just make you even more difficult. Just tell me why you're here."

Coco tilted her neck to one side, stretching it. "I told you the first time and you didn't believe me. You can either believe we were dispatched to thin the Grimm—you know, huntresses going to _hunt_ things—or you can ignore the truth and I can keep giving you stupid answers that mildly amuse me. I've had all night to come up with more."

Ash gave Coco a smile that would have been friendly in a different context. Then she knelt down and placed her hands on either side of Coco's face, turning it to face Nora. She leaned in, her lips brushing Coco's ear, and whispered; "And I've had all night to think of ways to discourage that behavior."

A pang of nausea hit Coco like brick to the stomach. She coughed and retched violently, turning her throat raw again as she fought to keep from vomiting. The sensation lasted for half a minute before fading, leaving Coco gasping for breath. As she drew in air, she noticed a low hiss leaving Ash's lips, fading in sync with the nausea.

"You have so much grit," she said. When she spoke, the sickness rose again, making Coco clench her teeth. "You're used to suffering your way through challenges. I'm actually impressed. You've forced me to use my Semblance."

Ash's pitch shifted higher halfway through her last sentence. The nausea ebbed, but as it faded Coco found herself shorter and shorter of breath. She began breathing faster and deeper, but she felt smothered, like she was trying to breathe through a pillow. She tried to jerk away from Ash, but the woman held her head still. She was vaguely aware of Nora shouting at Ash, but all she could hear was the woman's whisper:

"I can manipulate sound. Usually I'm more subtle with it. I mask my movements in absolute silence, or obscure the origin and direction of sound, like I did with my voice in the village. That's all it's useful for from a distance. I _can_ make a horribly painful screech that can shatter glass on a good day, but it's a useless trick when you focus on stealth like we do, and it's terribly rough on my vocal chords."

A pleased note entered her voice. "But up close, I can do some very interesting things. Not everyone responds to the exact same pitch the exact same way, but when I'm close enough to touch you I can hone in on the right frequency. Right now, my voice is vibrating at the resonant frequency of your lung tissue. I could do the same for your joints, your head, anywhere really. I could kill you if I decided to traumatize any vital area enough to shatter your Aura. But I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to make you wish I did."

Ash's pitch shifted up again and her words trailed off into a faint whistle. Coco found she could breathe again, and for a moment, everything was okay.

Then pain exploded behind her eye, like a ball of iron spikes had burst inside her head. She cried out and coiled in on herself, trying to shrink back from the sound, but Ash simply let Coco drag her along, holding tight to Coco's head to keep her mouth planted on the huntress' ear. Coco's vision blurred, and she screwed her eyes shut, terrified they would burst if her eyelids didn't hold them in place. Pain continued for what felt like hours. Then, as suddenly as it began, it ended. A dull ache remained where the pain had been. Coco slumped against the wall, her breathing heavy and ragged, her eyes watering.

"Seven minutes without asking for me to stop," Ash said with approval. "It's a damn shame you're not a Faunus, I'd pay to have someone with half your fortitude. I'd be lucky to have someone with a quarter of it." She crouched down again and Coco froze. "Now, tell me what I want to know."

Coco opened her eyes slowly and took a long look at Ash. She licked her lips and took a slow breath.

"When I get out of here," she said. "I am going to stick my boot so far up your ass, you'll be polishing it with your tongue."

Ash made a disgusted sound and stood up. "All this chest-beating bravado, look at you! It's almost endearing in a pathetic sort of way, but all you're doing is prolonging suffering for you and your team. Cooperate and it stops."

"Yeah right."

Ash sighed. "I was hoping to eat lunch while it was hot today." She started back towards Coco. The huntress never looked away, but she pressed herself back against the wall.

"Hey, don't I get a turn?" Both women turned towards Nora, who was staring at Ash, her eyes narrowed.

"Are you afraid I might break out and kick your ass?

"Hardly," Ash said, waving a hand. "I just doubt the dumb muscle knows more than her leader. Besides, I'm supposed to save you for later. My brothers and sisters all want a piece of the huntress who burned some of us alive, and they won't like it if I rob them of their chance for reprisal."

Ash paused and slowly rose to her feet. She began to walk towards Nora. "Although, I suppose if I use my Semblance just right, they won't have any idea I've done a thing."

Nora went rigid, but never stopped scowling at Ash. Ash crouched and took hold of her face. She looked Nora up and down, then leaned in.

"I think I'll begin with your joints. That should prevent—"

A bolt slid outside the door and Ash stopped. The door opened and Clay slipped through, nearly silent as he glided across the floor. He glanced over the scene before him with impassive eyes, then turned to Ash.

"Lloyd's back," he said.

"Thank you, Clay," Ash said, suppressing the annoyance in her voice. "Where's Karah?"

"Pacifying our trackers after Lloyd's unscheduled jaunt last night. It's a miracle we only lost two when he tried to guide an entire unit by himself."

"It's a miracle that he didn't get eaten," Ash said, rounding on Clay.

Coco looked from Ash to Clay and back in disbelief. "I'm not sure what's crazier, the fact that you think you can control Grimm, or that you have enough to need pens."

"We don't control them like dogs," Clay said. "Think of it as a controlled disaster, like a prescribed burn."

"Clay!"

"My apologies, Ash," Clay said, bowing his head. "She saw the ones we had at the village, clearly it wasn't too hard a deduction from there."

Ash scowled at Clay, then assumed a more controlled expression. "Is Lloyd ready to share his results?"

"Yes."

"Very well then." Ash looked back at the two huntresses "Duty calls, but I promise I won't keep you long." She ruffled Coco's hair, then followed Clay out of the room. Coco gave her a few seconds to move away from the door, then rounded on Nora.

"Stop that."

"Excuse me?" Nora asked.

"Stop trying to help me. I can handle whatever they throw at me."

"Coco, you're tough, but no one's invincible. I couldn't let her do that again, that hurt to _watch_."

"Then look away!" Coco snapped. She spoke again, quieter: "This is my responsibility."

Nora shuffled, giving the chain suspending her wrists an experimental tug. "So what, you're just a lightning rod of hate?"

"That's the idea."

Nora shook her head. "How's the escape plan coming along?"

"Not that great. You have any suggestions? You've been uncharacteristically quiet."

Nora leaned back against the wall. "Ren says if I don't have anything nice to say, I shouldn't say anything."

…

The mining camp sat in a large clearing adjacent to the face of the mountain. A chain-link fence encircled the area, which contained old mining equipment and vehicles, and a few scattered outbuildings. A building that looked like a cross between a hangar and a prison sat on the west side of the camp, nestled back against the cliff face leading up to the mountain. Half of it was only two floors tall, while the other half was tall and vaulted, with a set of large sliding doors marking one side. The entire structure was built from dark mottled concrete.

Nature had started reclaiming the area decades ago. Outside the perimeter, the tree line encroached on the fence, their branches reaching over it in places. A few trees had grown within the camp, and grass and bushes had sprung up in patches. Rust coated machines and outbuildings to varying degrees, ranging from a bulldozer with scattered patches of corrosion, to a shed that now looked like it had been constructed from scrap metal. Most of the area was cast in shadow as the sun sank below the mountain.

Reese set down the binoculars and continued to stare at the area below. She and Blake had found a place high on a ridge to the east where the vegetation was thick, perfect for observing the area in secrecy. They lay prone under some bushes, watching for activity.

"It looks like a fortress," Reese said.

"That's not a coincidence," Blake said. "Mining camps like this are a long way from help if Grimm come in force. The fence keeps out most people, and it slows down the Grimm just enough to let anyone in the yard enough take shelter in the main building. That's where the entrance to the mine should be as well."

"I don't see anyone. What about you?"

Blake took the binoculars and peered down at the site. "You see the catwalks around the outside of the buildings, just below their roofs? There should be another catwalk on the inside behind the windows, at least in the bigger building. That way they don't need to station people outside unless it's absolutely necessary. I bet there's one or two people watching through those. You probably didn't see anyone through them because of the shadows.

"Plus, if you look at those big doors, they look like they've been used regularly. The tread marks heavy equipment left in the yard are old, but those marks in the earth by the door are fresh, and there aren't any weeds or grass growing along the door's track. And our biggest clue is at the north fence:"

Two gates sat on the north side of the fence, sandwiching an empty space and forming a sally port to the wilderness outside. Beyond the outer gate, a pack of Beowolves milled about, restless. Along the northern section of fence, more Grimm roamed, singly or in pairs. Most simply paced the fence, though some occasionally prodded it with their claws. Reese felt her mouth go dry.

"Why are they just waiting?" she asked.

Blake shrugged. "Maybe our friends have demonstrated their strength enough times that they won't attack unless they leave the camp. This far from regular huntsmen patrols, there's probably more old Grimm than there would be closer to the cities. These Grimm know how to pick their battles."

Reese chewed her lip, scanning the camp again. "Hopping the fence or getting under it shouldn't be hard, but there aren't a whole lot of places to hide inside. Waiting until dark won't make that much of a difference, will it?"

"It'll help," said Blake, "But you're right, it won't tip the scales enough. What we need is an angle of attack they wouldn't expect."

"The roof?" Reese said. "It'll be a tricky climb down the cliff with the amount of rope we have, but we could do it. That ribbon on your weapon has some serious give."

Blake frowned. "If it were anyone else I'd say that's our way in. But the White Fang is used to unconventional infiltration tactics. Even if they're running on a skeleton crew, a splinter group adept in covert operations would expect that someone might try that, especially since it's their worst blind spot. I'm tempted to say we look for a back way through the mine, but they'd probably have guards stationed there."

"Would there be a lot? I could distract them and you could ninja them if it's just a couple."

"The problem there is _finding_ it, assuming a back way even exists. It would be camouflaged to prevent Grimm and humans getting in, and probably hardened in some way. Not as much as that main building, but enough to give us trouble."

Reese puffed, blowing her bangs out of her eyes. "That's all I got. We'll just to have to roll the dice and hope no one sees us jumping the fence and sneaking through the yard. Or, you know, we could just walk through the front gate. I bet they wouldn't expect that."

Blake set down the binoculars, blinking. She looked over at Reese, who raised an eyebrow at her.

"What?" Reese asked.

"Hear me out," Blake said. "Earlier, you mentioned creating a distraction…"

…

"This is a mistake," said the wolf-tailed Faunus. "We should be searching for them. We can still catch them before they get to Vale."

"No Lloyd, a mistake was trying to track the other two huntresses on your own." Ash said. "You're lucky the Komodos turned on each other when they got agitated and not on you. And for what? I saw the three you brought back. If they got that wild, they could have stampeded right past the remaining huntresses without noticing them. Honestly, losing more of our stock after that disaster at the village…"

"What's two more when we needed to replenish our stock anyway? I would have brought help, but everyone else capable of handling Grimm decided that tracking the biggest threat to our plans was not a priority."

"I told you Lloyd, they won't leave," Ash replied. "They'll look for us or they'll retreat to the village."

Lloyd scowled, leaning on the table. Back when the mining camp had housed miners, site supervisors had used the room as a hybrid office and lounge, as well as a place to discuss operations with the occasional visiting executive or auditor. Now, it was the splinter group's war room, evidenced by the diagrams on the white board, and the papers and maps spread out on the conference table.

All of them had removed their masks. Sable lounged back in a chair towards the entrance, her face pretty save for her expression of bored contempt. By contrast, Lloyd's features were so ugly his facial scars enhanced his appearance, turning his naturally unattractive face into one with the rugged appeal of a gladiator or a military veteran. Clay sat atop his own coiled tail in the back corner, behind Ash, his arms folded, looking as if he was nodding off. His face was broad, with no sharp features, neither attractive nor repulsive, as if a sculptor had begun carving his face but had not yet added any detail. Ash herself stood at the head of the table, her wings folded and raised, giving her an authoritative air.

"Huntsmen are terribly predictable in most cases," Ash said, "They'll either prioritize defending what's left of the village, or they'll attempt to rescue their teammates. Some huntsmen eventually break that mold, but the young ones almost universally have a streak of idealism."

"Even the Belladonna girl?" Lloyd asked.

"Blake Belladonna may not suffer typical young huntress delusions but she's her parents' child; emotional, and prone to guilt. Soft. I'll grant you, she's a competent fighter, and she has moments of resolve, but she's not ruthless enough to abandon imperiled teammates. She won't run back to Vale, or to the Vacuo border. As for the Mistrali huntress they brought with them, she'll stay as well. Based on what I've gathered from those of you who encountered her, she's impulsive, but not stupid. She'd be a fool to try to escape on foot without another huntress to watch her back. One way or another we'll have the whole team, and then we can figure out exactly how much Vale knows."

"Color me skeptical," Sable muttered.

Ash looked at Sable. "Excuse me?"

Sable met Ash's eyes. "When you were in the cell, I listened outside. We've had two of these supposedly green huntresses since last night, yet somehow Ashley Tadari, fearsome interrogator, hasn't produced any useful information. Instead, you play games with the prisoner and allow her to mock you, instead of knuckling down and taking what you want."

Ash's wings rustled and Sable blanched. For a moment it looked like Ash was going to swoop across the room at Sable. Instead, Ash sighed, massaging her temples.

"If I wanted to punish them, or torture them for the sake of inflicting pain, I could send anyone in there," Ash said. "As it stands, we need truthful information, not whatever they think will stop the pain. Good interrogation is about knowing a person: spend enough time with them that you find their greatest weakness, the thing they fear so much they wouldn't dare lie to you, no matter the consequences. There are three ways to crack the leader, but one takes time, one requires resources we no longer have, and none of you will let me utilize the third because you're all so focused on revenge."

"That weapon the small girl shot off killed five of us, injured seven more, and incinerated half our Komodos," Lloyd said. "I think all of us are entitled to make her regret her actions."

Ash rounded on Lloyd. "You have two options: Let me do my job, and I'll let you take out your frustrations on what's left of the brute when I'm done; or demonstrate some patience for the information we need and you can have her all to yourselves. Besides, you're forgetting the fun you can have when we capture the other two."

Sable made a scornful noise. "You can't think straight, Ash. The traitor deserves to be punished, but we'd be wasting a perfectly good bargaining chip. Think of how we could influence Menagerie."

"Respect your leader, Sable," Clay said. He stretched, cracking his neck. "Extorting Ghira Belladonna using his daughter isn't a plan. It's a joke, and the punchline is ' _And then Ghira crushed their skulls_.' He survived five assassination attempts that we know of before he stepped down, and he stopped at least two more intended for other targets. The man may not have the stomach for Sienna Khan's tactics, but he would absolutely not hesitate to hunt us down if we threatened his daughter."

"No matter how strong he is, he's only one man."

"One man who guides a nation of free Faunus we could potentially enlist. We don't just risk his personal wrath, we risk losing Menagerie."

"Precisely," Ash said. She spread her hands, palms up. "It would swing things out of our favor. Just think, if Blake's tragically mutilated corpse happened to turn up somewhere—for example, High Leader Khan's estate, or Adam Taurus' camp—it would shatter any goodwill they had with the world's unaffiliated Faunus. The conflict with Ghira's followers would all but guarantee a power shift in the White Fang. Such an event could force us to take charge of our brothers and sisters. I'd be reluctant to delegate execution of our own plans to the rank and file of the White Fang, but I wouldn't trust any of the other branches to command the entire organization. It would be such an unfortunate turn of events."

Sable's eyebrows rose. "Karah would like that."

"And yet, we're still waiting," Lloyd said. "We're not pursuing this opportunity."

"Because either path leads to victory," said Ash, clasping her hands behind her back. "This was an opportune surprise, but if Blake runs or escapes, she doesn't know the full scope of our projects. I doubt Vale would trust a defector with the more sensitive details of their mission, and she hasn't seen inside the building. If she somehow makes it back to Vale, she won't know anything new to tell them."

"You're delusional, arrogant—"

"Quiet," Clay said, cutting off Lloyd. Clay uncoiled, slowly stretching along the floor to his full length and pressing his body to the floor. His brow furrowed, puzzled. A moment later, animal roars and a low rumbling came from outside. Lloyd's head whipped towards the window. Sable sprung to her feet, ready to bolt. A hand radio squawked on the desk.

"Ash," Karah's voice came across the radio. "We've got activity at the fence."

Ash picked up the radio. "We'll be right there."

Clay drew up to his full height and slithered out of the room. Ash picked up her mask and met Lloyd's gaze before she put it on.

"What I am, Lloyd, is _patient_."

…

Reese rode along the outside of the fence, holding a heavy stick out in one hand. She let it drag along the fence, making a loud pinging sound as it bounced against the links, alerting any Grimm by the gate that hadn't heard Blake's pistol shot that prey was fleeing.

"'Start us off' she said," Reese muttered to herself. "'You can move faster than me' she said. If we survive this Belladonna, your team will never find your body!"

A Beowolf barked behind her and Reese yelped. She turned, flinging the stick sidearm, sending it spinning thirty feet through the air until it caught the Grimm in its open jaws. The hit staggered it, but several of its brethren sped past as it took a moment to recover.

Reese turned back and sped forward, jumping a fallen tree and creating a little more space between her and the pack. The forest's encroachment on the fence provided her with plenty of obstacles to slow down the Grimm, but they also threatened to incapacitate her as well. As she wove through trees and jumped small rises into debris-filled patches of ground, she forced thoughts of what would happen if she slowed too much or crashed from her mind, but they came back with equal force moments later.

"Light and easy," she said, her voice thin. "Just like that time you rode behind a train." That incident had kicked off her last year at Sanctum with a broken wrist and a set of crutches, but the fast-approaching corner provided a welcome distraction from that detail.

She crouched and leaned, cutting around the corner to ride south along the east fence. A boulder in her path forced to her turn so tight that the bottom of the board almost went perpendicular to the ground. For a moment her balance wavered, and her stomach dropped, but she carved around the corner into a relatively clear patch of earth and rose back into a stable stance.

Reese glanced back and saw the Grimm collide into each other as they tried to take the corner. A few took a wider route to avoid crashing and tumbling, but they had all fallen behind by a comfortable margin.

 _Good,_ she thought. _We need the extra space._ The next part was probably the most dangerous, and definitely the most ludicrous, but it fell inside Reese's comfort zone.

Up ahead, a tall tree reached a large limb over her path along the fence. Reese slowed a little to let the Grimm draw a bit closer, then sped forward again, jumping as she approached the tree. As she reached the peak of her jump, Blake swooped down on Gambol Shroud's ribbon and grabbed Reese around the waist. Reese clutched onto Blake with one arm, and hugged her board close with the other. They swung up, up towards the canopy, travelling past the tree limb and above it. When they began to slow, Blake activated her Semblance, pushing herself off Reese and her clone so she could swing forward to the next tree.

Reese and the shadow clone flew back towards the tree, landing amongst the branches as they collided with the trunk. The clone broke Reese's impact before it dissipated but the landing still knocked the air from her lungs. She took a series of deep breaths, forcing herself to stay calm and avoid attracting the Grimm.

It was a needless concern. As she caught her breath, she watched Blake swing forward to another tree, then down to the ground, sprinting ahead of the Grimm, which followed her without hesitation. She led them along, occasionally swinging back to the trees if it looked like they were getting too close. Reese peered over towards the main building. Figures in black slipped out the doors, taking the quickest, most covert routes they could toward where it looked like the Grimm were heading.

Reese rose and began to climb down the tree. As much as she had complained, Blake had the hard job. All Reese had left to do was to meet her at the gate. She leapt the last ten feet down, rolled into a crouch, and took off through the brush.

…

A few Grimm still milled about the gate, but they were spread apart and placid, unaware of any readily accessible prey. Reese was watching from a clump of bushes, assessing the Grimm and looking for any hidden guards, when Blake slid alongside her. She doubled over, trying to breathe quietly.

"Did they see you?" Reese asked.

Blake shook her head. "I think I just made my window," she said, speaking between gasps. "I ditched the Grimm right as the guards got close enough to draw their attention. We have to move though. They'll figure out we're not there soon if they haven't already, and the Grimm won't slow them down for long."

"Gotcha. You good?"

Blake rose, her breathing slowing a little. "I won't be sprinting long distances for a while, but we won't need to run as much to get by the Grimm that are left." She gave Reese a look. "Ready?"

Reese swallowed. "Let's get it over with."

Blake glanced at the path to the gate and the surrounding area. She scanned the inside of the camp one more time, then tugged Reese by the wrist through the underbrush. They slipped through the forest and stopped just short of the trail, waiting for a Boarbatusk to look the other way. A few moments passed, seeming to stretch for hours, then the beast turned to sniff at a patch of grass. They darted across the trail, and made their way towards the fence.

They reached another place where a tree limb reached over the fence, this one just to the side of the gate, in line with the small guard shack. They climbed up and did a quick sweep of the near section of the yard, then Blake crept forward along the branch and leapt, landing with lithe grace. A moment later Reese made the same leap, using her board's hover field to cushion her landing.

The two of them scurried into the shadow of the empty guard shack, taking a moment to look back. One Beowolf was pawing idly at the gate, and a medium-sized Komodo had taken notice of the Beowolf's interest, but neither was active enough to draw attention from any human or Faunus observer. Blake lowered herself to the ground, minimizing the chance of a guard recognizing a person's silhouette against the side of the building, and poked her head around the corner. A moment later, she drew her head back and sat up.

"I don't see anyone except for the guards by the east fence, but that doesn't mean there isn't anyone else around. I see a path we can take by moving through cover. Don't fall behind."

Keeping low to the ground, they moved closer to the main building, stopping behind an old bulldozer and pressing their backs against its treads. Reese scanned the area behind them while Blake peered ahead around the machine's immense blade. They continued this way, stopping behind a storage building, one of the trees that had sprouted since the original owners had abandoned the site, and a broken down generator. They finally came to a stop behind a massive dump truck, parked beneath the conveyor belt of a rock crusher the size of a building.

"Still want to try the window at the top of the fire stairs?" Reese asked.

"I don't know," Blake said. "If there are any guards posted inside, they'd see us pretty quick. We'd almost be better off posing as regular White Fang and knocking on the front door. I'm leaning towards finding an entrance on the side facing the mountain, but there might not be one."

"We could create another diversion and sneak in the door once they're out."

Blake shook her head. "The second half of that plan is risky, and they won't fall for the first half again."

At that moment they both heard the screech of metal, followed by the low rumble of something heavy moving across a set of rollers. The two huntresses went prone and peered beneath the truck, looking out the opposite side in the direction of the sound.

The massive doors in the side of the main building parted the width of a large car and stopped. Five people dressed in the splinter group's combat suits and masks emerged from the building, led by Clay. His massive tail undulated, propelling him across the yard in a slow, powerful glide. They stopped a good distance from the doors and peered around the mining camp, watching for anything unusual. Clay moved around the group in a meandering circle, as if distracted. The only sounds came from the east fence, as those who had gone to repel the pack of Grimm drove them back.

"So much for that," Reese said. "Let's try our luck with the side facing the mountain." Reese started to crawl away from the truck, stretching her foot out to shuffle back.

Clay's head snapped in their direction.

Reese felt her breath catch in her throat. The two huntresses watched as he pressed his broad muscular chest to the ground, flattening his body against the earth. His body was tense despite the splayed pose, like a sprinter waiting for the starter gun to fire. One of the men behind him took a step forward. He slapped the man back with his tail, turned back and snarled at him, then resumed his prone position. The other men all remained still.

Reese craned her neck so she could flick her eyes between the massive Faunus and Blake. Blake wore an identical expression of alarm, her ears pointed back.

"Can he hear us?" Reese mouthed, silent.

Blake gave her head a minute shake. "I don't think so," she said, her voice almost inaudible. "But judging by his behavior, I'm pretty sure he can feel anything moving across the ground."

"So if we climbed on top of something...?" Reese whispered.

"Maybe? I don't know. I don't know how sensitive he is, or if I'm even right."

Reese pursed her lips. "He didn't like it when his guy moved…" Slowly, with the delicacy of someone disarming a bomb, Reese picked up a walnut-sized rock and rolled onto her back. She drew her left arm back and chucked the rock across her body, sending it bouncing past a storage shed towards the east fence.

Clay whipped in the direction of the sound. He tilted his head that way and two of his men took off at a light jog. Clay trailed behind them, sliding prone across the ground. As the men moved, Reese and Blake stalked towards the rock crusher, hiding in the shadows of the immense machine. From their spot by the crusher, Blake looked back to see Clay stopped again. He was pointed halfway between where the rock had landed and the huntresses' new hiding place.

"Okay," Blake said. "That sort of worked, but we're going to need a lot more of them moving around to completely cover up our footsteps."

Reese looked up at the machine they were hiding under.

"I've got a better idea."

…

Clay eased his way towards the mountain. The longer he felt the ground and the farther his men spread out, the easier it was to parse the different vibrations he felt in the earth. True, one huntress could have been moving near the pair of men he sent to investigate that tremor by the shed, but there weren't many places they could hide from the two guards, at least not without alerting Clay to their movements. Shortly after they had advanced Clay felt another set of vibrations from the direction of the rock crusher, weaker than the initial ones, but persisting a bit longer. Clay grinned. They learned quickly. Catching them might actually be a challenge.

More movement came from the direction of the crusher, soft and fuzzy at first, the feel of footsteps on loose soil or gravel. Then the vibrations became harder, more staccato, better defined, but fainter than he'd expected. Someone was walking on a hard surface, but wasn't in direct contact with the ground.

Clay began moving towards the machine at a steady pace, increasing his speed as he pinpointed the source of the movements. He looked up at a maintenance catwalk on the crusher as he drew alongside the truck. He couldn't see anyone in the shadows, but he felt them moving on the upper level of the machine. He crawled forward, slithering up around the ladder without a sound onto the catwalk.

In contact with the machine, he felt more than just occasional footsteps: There was the light tap of metal on metal, a grinding sensation as a panel to something slid open, a non-metallic rustling he couldn't place. And then he heard her curse under her breath. Clay drew himself up to his full height, flexing his arms. He only used weapons when he intended to kill people larger than himself. They were excessive for anyone else.

He slid forward a few yards, then stopped when he heard a strangled shout. He whipped around, moving along the catwalk back the way he came. The two men who had remained behind to watch the yard were sprawled on the ground, unmoving. He stared, confused. He hadn't felt anything moving on the ground.

Then he felt one solid strike on the ground and turned to see a figure with dark hair gliding along the ground towards the main building on what looked like a levitating plank, one of his men's rifles slung at her hip. He bared his teeth half-amused, half-angered.

"THE DOOR!" he bellowed at the two men near the shed. He jabbed a finger towards Blake. "GET HER!"

Both men ran, weapons raised. Hearing Clay's cry, Blake slung Reese's hoverboard across her back and ran for the doors. A few seconds later, she skidded to a halt and took off for the shadows on the north wall of the building as gunfire came from inside the open door. Clay spun, surging back towards the intersection in the machine where he had heard the other huntress working, when a loud buzzer sounded. The rock crusher rumbled to life, its motors, jaws, and belts reverberating with the low pulse of industrial machinery. To most people, it was loud and oppressive.

To Clay, it was like an earthquake had drowned out every physical sensation, far louder than the pack of Grimm at the east fence had been. Reduced to relying on sight he charged forward towards an intersection in the catwalk that passed between two sections of the machine. Rounding the corner, he found a control console and an opened maintenance panel. The inside of the panel revealed a tangle of ripped wires and smashed components, preventing anyone from shutting the machine off. Clay turned to look down the catwalk and saw a flicker of movement disappear around the corner.

Clay surged along the walkway, rounding the corner to find Reese halfway up a ladder to the top of the crusher. He lunged forward, arms outstretched, ready to tear her off the ladder. With an arm's length to spare, Reese took one hand off the ladder and flung a heavy wrench into this face. Clay's aura absorbed the blow, but it staggered him a moment as he clutched his face in pain, letting out an angry roar.

Reese climbed on top of the machine, ran for the conveyor belt, and leapt onto it, slipping a little as her feet slid on the loose gravel. She scrambled up the incline and tumbled into the truck bed the belt emptied into. Climbing to her knees, she found herself wrist-deep soil, gravel—and raw dust crystals. She grabbed several handfuls, stuffing them into the pockets of her shorts and hoodie.

"Jackpot!" she said, grinning.

Behind her, Clay landed on the belt hard enough to be heard over the crusher, causing a cloud of dust to billow up from the belt. Reese let out an undignified squawk. She leapt to grab the side of the truck bed, pulled herself over, and tumbled to the ground.

Looking up, she saw Blake halfway up the fire escape, exchanging fire with four guards on the ground. She lay pressed against the metal grating, discouraging any of them from climbing after her with a shot down the staircase or over the edge of the landing, but they had formed a circle around the bottom of the fire escape, preventing her from moving without risking a direct hit. Reese's eyes flicked towards the roof itself and saw a pair of figures moving towards the top of the fire escape, positioning themselves to keep Blake from climbing up.

Reese ran towards the group at the bottom of the stairs and pulled one of the larger crystals out of her pocket. She flung it at the closest guard and it bounced off his shoulder. He turned, confused for a moment, then started firing at Reese, who dove behind a pair of metal drums. She covered her head with one arm and dug for another crystal with her free hand, pulling out a small earth dust crystal.

"Blake!" she shouted. "My board!"

Blake peeked out from the landing. She stood, making a clone to draw fire, and tossed the board out like a javelin before taking cover again. It clipped the side of the guard firing at Reese, flying past him. The hit only distracted him for a moment, but that was long enough for her to break cover, mount the board, and knock him over as she sped towards the other three.

Reese zig-zagged through the group, contorting her body and crouching to present a smaller target. She managed to dodge the gunfire from the other guards as she weaved through them, but they also kept her from getting close enough to land another strike. She looked over her shoulder as she zipped past the final two to see Clay speed through the middle of the men as all four of them fired at her.

Blake chose that moment to swing down from above, taking one man down with two boots to the head. She rolled to her feet and fired at the crystal Reese had thrown earlier. The blast sent the man next to the crystal flying into the wall of the building in a burst of flame. Clay turned at the sound of the crystal detonating and moved back towards Blake, who tossed aside the empty rifle, drew _Gambol Shroud_ , and assumed a ready stance. The remaining two men continued pursuing Reese, firing in bursts as they did so.

Reese turned her hoverboard towards the scoop of a wheel loader the size a house and accelerated, the wind whipping her hood behind her head. She rode into the scoop, up its curve, and out the top of the scoop, traveling inverted. Time seemed to slow as the ground went by beneath her. One of the men slowed, gaping at the maneuver Reese had pulled off, while the other raised his rifle at the airborne target. Reese aimed for the second man.

Reese flicked an earth dust crystal into her board and twisted her body, righting herself, then interposing her hoverboard between herself and the gun. She felt a few shots ricochet off the board as she hurtled through the air, wincing as one clipped her arm and took out a chunk of Aura. She slammed into the man, the impact travelling up her legs to her hips, then activated the earth dust, burying the man in dirt. She shifted her weight to her forward foot and gripped her hoverboard's tail with her back hand, letting her momentum somersault her into the air towards the second guard. She brought her board up in a high arc over her head and brought it down into the guard's face as she landed.

No earth came from the board, the small crystal already depleted, so Reese swung the board at his gun, knocking it away and following up with strikes to his legs and torso. The man cursed as Reese drove him back, forcing him to block with his arms instead of his weapon as he retreated. He stepped on a length of pipe and stumbled, and Reese lunged forward, sending him flying into a pile of crates with a kick to the chest.

Reese turned around to see the man she had buried still struggling to dig himself out. The two men Blake had struck were still down, but Clay was fighting Blake with feral aggression. He had forced her back towards the truck parked by the rock crusher, and the two of them were trading blows.

Blake danced around Clay with nimble grace, striking his arms and upper body, while he just barely managed to block strikes to his head. But though Clay lacked Blake's finesse, he still possessed impressive speed, and his stamina seemed untaxed. Her dodges away from his lunges grew narrower with each evasion, and her strikes grew sloppy, the days of sparse rest and heavy activity catching up to her. She leapt back from one strike and paused for a fraction of a second before moving again, but that was all Clay needed.

He flicked his tail behind Blake swatting her toward his outstretched arms. Blake managed to activate her Semblance, sending a clone into his crushing embrace, but her momentum still carried her forward. She bounced over his shoulder and sprawled onto the ground. Blake coughed, climbing to her knees and crawling towards the fence, but she was still too winded to run. Clay turned around and hauled Blake up by her ankle with one hand, dangling her in front of his face.

Clay gave her an appraising look. "You fought well. Let that console you later."

He reached for Blake's wrist with his free arm, then recoiled back as a volley of shots struck his arm, encasing it in jagged clusters of ice. He shrunk back, presenting a smaller target to Reese as she fired. More rounds struck his trunk, prompting Clay to hold Blake in front of him as a shield. Reese stuck one revolver in her pocket and took aim with the other using both hands. Clay laughed, a mocking sound.

"You're not good enough to make that shot," he said. "You'll hit your teammate."

"That's the idea," Reese said.

Reese pulled the trigger and her gun fired with a loud 'WHUMP'. The gun's muzzle burst with white sparks and knocked Reese onto her back as a small, but intense gust of wind hit Blake and Clay. Clay slid back a dozen feet, losing his grip on Blake and landing on his side. Blake flew farther, tucking into a roll as she hit the ground. For a moment she lay still as her ears rang, fighting the urge to pass out, but she managed to force herself to stand, slowly regaining her senses.

A few yards away Clay rose, almost as disoriented as Blake. He pushed himself up with his unfrozen arm, and laughed again, sounding pleased instead of scornful.

"Oh, well done! But that trick won't work ag—" A burst of ice enveloped Clay's head, cutting him off. Reese ran past him, wedged her shoulder under Blake's arm and started shepherding Blake back towards the front gate. After a few yards Blake pulled away and began moving by herself.

"I thought," Blake said, speaking in bursts as she panted, "You didn't have any Dust left."

"I found more," Reese said. "Trouble is, I'm down to one gun and have no hoverboard."

Reese waved the broken gun, the end of its barrel shaped like a flower with jagged steel petals. She swapped it with the working one in her pocket, reloading it with a speed loader. Looking over her shoulder, she saw two of the men moving towards Clay while he clawed at his face with his free arm. From the direction of the Grimm they had baited, she saw more figures running towards them. Reese scanned the way ahead of them, her eyes falling on the parked dump truck, steadily filling with crushed stone and raw dust.

"Think you can make a tricky shot?" Reese asked.

"Not now," Blake said.

Reese ground her teeth. "Okay, run for the fence, I'll catch up."

"That's a very bad idea!"

"If we don't make them spread out, they'll catch us! I'll meet you at the place we picked earlier, go!"

Blake kept moving forward, weaving a path through buildings and obstructions to compensate for her flagging speed, while Reese split off for the truck as they ran past. She ran by the place she and Blake had hidden and scattered most of her dust crystals underneath the truck, concentrating them by the axles beneath the rock crusher's conveyor belt. She climbed back up the crusher, coming full circle to where the fight had begun, and ran to the end of the catwalk by the conveyor belt. Looking out, she saw Clay and most of the guards following Blake, nearing the front of the truck.

Reese drew an orange crystal from her pocket and tossed it onto the conveyor belt. She drew her remaining pistol, and took aim at the end of the belt, leading her target. Reese wasn't a gifted shot, but she mixed her flame dust ammunition for ignition and spread, not for penetration or velocity.

She fired, and a pale ball of flame hit the crystal, making it glow a brighter, angrier shade of orange as it tumbled into the truck bed. She leaned over the railing and emptied the cylinder, firing at the crystals she had scattered beneath the truck. More orange light shone from underneath the truck. The crystals in the truck bed began to detonate, then the ones beneath the truck followed, sending tons of steel, stone, and exploding ore tumbling end over end towards the guards.

Clay reacted just before the truck flipped, shoving two guards back out of harm's way, and scooping a third up in his arms. Explosions and rubble enveloped the rest in a cloud of light and smoke, the sound echoing through the mining camp. Reese pressed her hands over her ears and saw spots in her vision even after she turned away. She looked back after the sound had faded to occasional pops of the last few crystals and saw the aftermath:

The two guards Clay had shoved back were lying on the ground. They moved a little, but they were clearly shell-shocked, no longer threats. The rest had been thrown back and burned by the immense volume of ignited Dust, or buried beneath the spilled mound of rubble. The truck lay atop the mound, upside down. Every so often a crystal detonated beneath the truck, making a sound like a firecracker going off inside a trash can, only much louder. Towards the far end of the pile, Clay had managed to dig his head and a single arm out of the rubble before passing out. Reese couldn't see the guard he had shielded. A pang of guilt rippled through Reese for a moment, then she pushed it away. They deserved this after terrorizing the villages.

Reese's eyes flicked towards the fence. She saw Blake scale it, scrambling over the top without her usual grace. She rolled onto her back when she landed, but rose and moved a moment later, disappearing into the brush. Reese pocketed her working gun and scrambled down the rock crusher, leaping down the last six feet of the ladder. She ran for the fence, weaving through buildings in her path, clutching her side as she ran.

As Reese neared the guard shack something struck her from above and behind, ensnaring her entire body. She fell forward, unable to move her arms up, and her head struck the ground. Her head burst with pain and she cried out on impact, trying to clutch her head with one hand while she nursed her side with the other. As she slowly regained her bearings she saw diamond shapes crowding her vision. Someone had caught her in a net.

Reese pressed her hands against the net to try to disentangle herself, but the net only gave a fraction of an inch before going taut. She went to draw her gun from her pocket to cut herself loose with its short bayonet, but her hands remained stuck against the net. Something sticky coated the net's fibers, adhering it to her skin and clothing. Reese's breathing became shallow and quick, and she kicked at the net, rolling on the ground and tangling herself further.

"You're just making it worse," a woman said. "I can't say I'm surprised the only smart thing about you is your mouth."

Reese froze. She craned her head in the direction of the voice, straining to see the speaker. The six-armed woman strode into view, carrying a second net, an assortment of tools, and a long curved knife in four of her arms. She crouched next to Reese, rolling her onto her back and staring down at her. Her mask hid her expression, but Reese felt her mouth turn dry at the eager, breathless note in the sigh she released.

"I've been looking forward to this."

…

Tools? All taken. Picking a lock with a hairpin? Nora was out of reach, and from what Coco had seen of her restraints in the light, the locks were positioned so that she wouldn't be able to pick her own cuffs. Sheer brute force? Coco hunched over, braced her feet against the wall and pulled down, straining against the bolt above her, clenching her jaw as the cuffs dug into her wrists. After a few moments, she relaxed, hanging there for a moment before straightening up. Her Aura was recovering so slowly it seemed permanently reduced. The only clue it had recovered at all was the gradual fade of the ache in her jaw from Karah's punch.

"Are we free yet?" Nora asked, her voice tired.

"Nora, if I were physically able to slap you, I would."

There was a pause. "I'll take that as a 'No'," Nora eventually said.

"What is your damage, Valkyrie?"

"The same as yours. We haven't eaten since we left the village, and that last meal was pretty small. That wouldn't be so bad, but I think I've slept less than three hours since I woke up in this cell. It's not exactly a recipe for patience with your usual ' _Stand aside peasants, Alpha-Huntress will single-handedly save the day!_ ' attitude."

"And what have you done?" Coco snapped. "I haven't heard any bright ideas from you. All you've done is hang there and make sarcastic comments."

Nora snorted. "I was just following your lead."

Coco huffed and yanked at the bracket above her head again, the chain rattling in response to the angry jerks of her wrists.

"All I know is that we have a window of opportunity while they deal with those explosions outside," Coco said. "We don't know how large this place is, so we can't depend on Blake and Reese finding us before the guards come back to use us as leverage. I would like to be out of here before then."

"But you don't have a way to do that, do you?" said Nora.

Coco started to retort when the lock in the door turned. She closed her eyes to avoid being blinded by the light as it turned on, opening them when she heard footsteps stop just before her. Ash stood with her arms folded in front of her, drumming her fingers against her upper arm in agitation. Coco sneered at her.

"What's the matter?" she asked. "Two huntresses were too much for your friends? How bad did they make you look?"

Ash went still for a moment, staring at Coco. Then her eyes glittered, and the corner of her mouth turned up in a smile. Coco felt dread creep into her stomach, but she maintained her poker face.

"I found something of yours," Ash said.

"Is it my hat?" Coco asked, feigning nonchalance.

"Not exactly. Sable, Lloyd, come join us."

Sable and Lloyd entered, carrying Reese between them. They had bound her with several coils of rope and lashed her hands in front of her. They dropped her on her knees a few yards behind Ash. She glanced up at Coco and her shoulders sagged, almost apologetic. Coco sobered, forcing down feelings of anger and panic, not trusting herself to speak. Ash watched her, and her smile spread.

"You left me with an interesting conflict yesterday," Ash said. "You don't care about getting hurt, so my efforts are wasted on tormenting you directly. Normally I'd try to persuade you by turning my attention to your ginger friend, but I've admitted we have plans for her, so that threat doesn't carry any weight. I had no quick way forward. As frustrating as that was, it turned out I just needed to be patient and trust my brothers to do their job. Now I have a resource that I can actually expend."

"Leave her alone," Coco said, her voice level. "She didn't do anything to you."

"Tell that to the people she buried in an avalanche of exploding dust!" Ash shouted. "Every one of them is dead or wounded. I think she's done quite a bit to us, Miss Adel. You will tell me why your team is here, or you will not like what I do to the Mistrali girl."

Coco glanced back at Reese, who was straining against her ropes. Sable reached down and picked Reese up by the shoulders, pulling her close and looking her in the eyes. Coco heard a note of pleasure in her voice.

"Ash, do you mind if I help you?" she asked. "I owe this one for how she treated me at the village."

Reese thrust her head forward, head-butting Sable in the mask where her nose should have been. Sable shouted in pain, and she dropped Reese as her hands flew to her face. Reese flinched as she landed on her side. She shook with laughter as she looked up at Sable, who reached under her mask to massage her nose. Coco felt a flicker of approval at her defiance.

Then Sable growled and kicked Reese in the ribs, cutting the laughter short. Reese let out a pained grunt and curled up, shielding her ribs and stomach with her legs against further kicks. She grit her teeth as blows landed on her shins and back. Through the pain she was vaguely aware of Coco swearing at Sable.

"It's not fun getting kicked when you're down, is it?" Sable said, as she continued to attack Reese. She raised a boot to stomp down on Reese's head.

"Sable, enough," Ash said.

Sable stopped, lowering her foot to the ground. Ash turned to back to Coco.

"Did that jar your memory at all?" Ash asked, her tone offhand.

"How many times do I have to tell you?" Coco shouted. "We were just hunting Grimm! I don't know what you want me to say. You're all so blinded by fanaticism I don't think I can convince any of you that I'm telling the truth."

Ash regarded Coco in silence. Then she shrugged and walked over to Reese. Ash crouched and pulled her into a sitting position, settling in behind her. She brushed Reese's hair back from her face and leaned in close to her.

"Where should I begin?" Ash said, speaking to Coco without taking her eyes off of Reese's ear. The pitch of her voice fluttered and Reese twitched as Ash's Semblance stirred to life.

"I could start with her stomach like I did with you, but I abhor the smell of vomit. The heart can be a promising choice, but huntresses are usually fit enough that attacking it is time-consuming. I've seen this one thrown around enough that that going for her head might not produce results..."

Ash's eyebrows rose. She let out an almost inaudible hiss and Reese jerked away in response. Ash just wrapped her arms around Reese's stomach and held her close.

"It's so obvious," she said. "The lungs are the perfect spot. I don't think she'll fare well for long based on Sable's assessment of her ribs, but that's not my problem."

Ash leaned in, making a low humming sound. Reese groaned and tried to pull away, but her struggles quickly grew weak and she began coughing like her lungs were filled with mud. Reese slumped back, her lungs burning. Through spots in her vision she saw Nora lunging at the nearest of their captors, trying to rip free of the wall. A dizzy feeling joined the burning in her lungs, but she couldn't muster the energy to do any more than weakly kick in an attempt to push herself away. She had almost blacked out when a shout cut through the haze:

"STOP! YOU WERE RIGHT!"

Reese's vision gradually cleared and she found herself able to breathe easily again. She looked up to see Ash watching Coco. Coco's shoulders heaved with exertion, her face red with shame and guilt.

"You were right," Coco repeated, quieter. "We were sent here for you. Vale didn't know for certain that it was the White Fang, but based on the nature of the disappearances and attacks they thought it was likely. The leading theory was that you were practicing for something much bigger on people the kingdom wouldn't notice missing. They wanted us to figure out your plans and stop you before you could attack a more important target."

A smile spread across Ash's face, made crooked by the scar on her cheek. "I knew you'd come around eventually," she said, mussing Coco's hair. "It's rare that we actually get to have a dialogue with someone nowadays."

"Dialogue's a two way street," Nora said.

"And humans have refused to carry their half of the conversation far too often," Ash said, not taking her eyes off of Coco. "Now, tell me: What else does Vale know about us?"

"That's all we were given," Coco said. "They kept us in the dark about a lot of things. You know everything I do, now leave my teammate alone."

Ash shook her head slowly. "Really? I'm disappointed. That can't be all you know."

"It is, I swear."

"Why do you think we're stupid or naïve enough to believe that? You weren't the only people Vale sent to spy on us. If Sable hadn't knocked the first spy down a well before he could shoot me in the back, we'd have a better idea of what they know about us."

"What?" Reese exclaimed. Nora's expression darkened. Coco gaped for a few moments like a fish out of water before mustering words:

"You're lying. They got information from a villager broadcasting reports back to Vale."

"They received _some_ information that way," Ash said, "But nothing in those reports would have convinced Mistral to loan you a huntress."

Ash rose, studying Coco's expression. "You either have an exceptional poker face for a young huntress, or Vale is excessively judicious with their secrets. Either way, I'm done playing games." She looked over her shoulder at Sable and Lloyd. "Get rid of the Mistrali."

"I want to have fun with her first," Sable said.

"Then take her outside for target practice," Ash said, waving a hand. "You can bait the Belladonna girl in that way, kill two Nevermores with one stone."

Sable purred and grabbed Reese by her feet, dragging her from the room. Reese shouted, and thrashed against her bonds, but Sable managed to hold tight as she hauled her through the door, Lloyd walking alongside her.

"Reese!" Coco shouted. She pulled against the chain so hard she felt her weakened Aura flicker. She strained until her arms felt like they might pop from her shoulders, then rounded on Ash.

"If you hurt her, I'll kill you."

Ash surged down, slamming Coco into the wall. She cupped Coco's jaw with her hand and held her gaze.

" _When_ we hurt her, I'm going to show you what's left of her and you'll obey. Not for your sake or that of your companions; you'll never leave this place alive. You'll obey because when we execute our plan, your cooperation will mean the difference between a quick tactical death for your friends in Vale, and a long painful one. I'm very curious to see how long it will take me to wear down Yatsuhashi."

Coco's heart stopped. Her eyes widened and her breathing grew shallow. She had fought and suffered through countless dangerous and harrowing situations since deciding to become a huntress, but the dread and horror that had lurked in the back of her mind in every close fight paled in comparison to the sheer terror coursing through her body at Ash's words. Ash bared her teeth in a sneer.

"That's right. You were so intent on following the rules of engagement for huntsmen captured while in service of the kingdom, so arrogant and sarcastic, you didn't think to give me false information. I know everything about your regular team. Where they work, where they live, who they care about. I actually hope you'll keep lying, because then I won't have to break my word when we attack Vale. I'll use my Semblance on the big one until he's clinging to life, then I'll kill him and Fox the same way Sable will kill the Mistrali girl. And I can't wait to meet Velvet. See, when it comes to Faunus who won't fight alongside us, my branch of the White Fang actually agrees with Atlesian bigots: They're filthy beasts that need to be put down. I've always wanted rabbit-skin moccasins, they look so warm."

"Please," Coco said, her voice small, "Don't."

Ash gave Coco's cheeks a squeeze. "Obey, and they die with dignity. Continue to defy me, and I might keep you alive long enough to watch. If there's enough fur on your teammate's ears, you might even get a new hat before you die."

Ash left the room, leaving them in darkness. Coco knelt frozen for a long time. Then she screamed in rage and despair until her throat went raw.

…

 _Stay calm,_ Reese thought to herself. Y _ou've been through worse—no, you had tools and a partner when you got locked in that walk-in freezer. And Arslan bailed us out. This is definitely worse than that._

She watched the ceiling go by as Sable dragged her down the hallway, the uncovered lights making spots in her vision. She glanced at Sable and Lloyd to ensure they weren't looking, then tried to loosen the rope binding her wrists. She grasped with her fingers, stretching for a knot, but it remained out of reach. Flexing against the ropes produced abrasions, and pins and needles, but it didn't create any slack. She tried bending at the waist to reach the knots with her teeth, but Sable noticed. She flipped Reese onto her side so she was dragged on her shoulder, preventing her from attempting the motion again. Reese huffed, staring daggers at the back of Sable's head.

Eventually, they passed through a door to the yard outside, walking towards the North fence. They moved closer to the mountainside and away from the gate, passing the rock crusher and the scene of destruction next to it. Sable took a path through a series of fist-sized rocks, ensuring that Reese's head and shoulder hit as many of them as possible. Reese grunted and swore, bucking against Sable's hold, but Sable grabbed her with a third hand and tightened her grip.

"God, you're like a worm on a hook," said Sable.

"Tell me Sunshine," Reese said. "Do you get a bulk discount when you get manicures?"

Sable looked at Lloyd. "Can we please gag her?"

"No," Lloyd said. "What good is a trap if you hide the bait?" Reese shivered, but said nothing.

They passed a watchtower and stopped near where the fence met the mountainside. Parked next to the fence was an old crane that looked like it hadn't moved in years. Sable dropped Reese's ankles and slipped off into the darkness. Lloyd loosened the ropes binding Reese's arms and upper body, leaving her wrists secured.

"You finally ready for a fair fight?" Reese asked.

"How is it that all of you are this irritating?" Lloyd said. "Did Vale select you for arrogance instead of fighting ability?" Lloyd produced a thick, heavy rope and tied it to Reese's wrists. Then went to the massive coil of rope it belonged to and found the opposite end. He secured a large hex nut onto the other end of the coil, stood, drew his arm back, and tossed the weighted end up into the air. Reese's brow furrowed, wary and confused. Lloyd saw her and made a smug noise.

A rustling sound came from the coil, as the far end spooled out like an uncoiling snake. Just as Reese understood what was happening, it accelerated, consuming the rest of the coil. The rope around her wrists went taut, and it yanked her into the air. She let out a surprised shout as she rose. Halfway up, she passed Sable riding down, laughing with glee. When Sable landed on her feet, Reese jerked to a halt, a foot of rope between her fingertips and the crane's hook. She squirmed, trying to take some of the load off her wrists, eventually going slack when she couldn't reduce the strain.

A screeching of metal came from the ground below. Reese looked down to see Sable and Lloyd turning the crane, pivoting it until Reese dangled over the far side of the fence. As she slowly turned on the rope, Reese saw Sable disappear back into the night, while Lloyd climbed the watchtower. When he reached the top, he produced a combat rifle, leaned onto the railing, aimed, and fired.

The round flew by Reese's leg, chipping her Aura, but not harming her. She let out an alarmed cry, and tried to swing out of the next shot, which rippled her clothes as it traveled past her ribs. A third shot whistled by her ear and upper arm, making her flinch. Reese's pulse picked up so much she felt like her heart would explode before a lethal shot hit her. She mustered a shred of bravado, letting out a high-pitched laugh:

"You missed!"

Lloyd stepped back from the railing and shrugged. "You're not the target."

Reese stared at him, confused. Something hit the ground below her, hard. She glanced down at the sound and her eyes bulged.

A pit lay directly below Reese. Shadows obscured most of the bottom, but she made out an elongated shape crawling in the dark. Two horse-sized Komodos creeping towards the pit's edge confirmed her suspicion. As they approached the edge, the Komodos looked up and tried to leap up at Reese. They managed a surprising amount of height for something so squat, but they stopped less than halfway to her feet, flopping into the pit on their bellies as they fell down.

Growls came from behind Reese, and she craned her neck to look at them. More Komodos and quite a few Beowolves slunk out of the woods, all of them looking at her. The Komodos all slipped into the hole much as the first two had. The nearest Beowolf crouched at the edge of the pit, cocking its head to one side as it looked at her. Then it sprung up, extending its arms out to swipe at her. Reese swung away, and the Beowolf came up an entire body length short and fell into the pit. A larger one attempted the same leap, only jumping marginally higher, but it swung its arm hard enough that Reese felt the air around her legs move.

Rapid footfalls came from the forest's edge and Reese's stomach turned to ice. A compact, lean looking Beowolf sped towards her on all fours. It leapt onto a larger one's back, then sprung off, soaring through the air, its arms reaching towards Reese, its jaws gaping wide. Reese tried to pull her feet up, but the Grimm's jaws were already poised around her calves, ready to snap them in half.

A rifle fired and the Beowolf burst into smoke before it could bite Reese. She squealed and flinched at the shot, growing lightheaded as she drew in panicked breaths. Over on the watchtower, Lloyd lowered his gun and raised his mask to sneer at Reese.

"My high score is thirty-two," he called out to Reese. "I think the record is forty Grimm until someone's been ripped down. But that was an exceptionally good day."

Absolute terror seized Reese, and she started thrashing against her bonds. She looked around, searching for something, anything that could help her escape. All she saw were more Grimm emerging from the forest, and tumbling into the pit. Most leapt and tumbled in, but the scarred older ones held back, assessing the area for the best way to reach Reese. And as the pit filled with Grimm, the smaller Beowolves started to climb atop the backs of the other trapped Grimm and leap up, their jaws snapping within a leg's length of her feet.

Reese began to scream.


	12. Chapter 12

Silence hung in the cell like a cold March fog. No sounds came from outside, save for the faint hum of the lights in the hall. Nora shifted her weight in an attempt to relieve the pressure on her wrists, but only managed to transfer it all to one of them. She grimaced, returning to a position that distributed the weight between both wrists, and huffed. She looked to her left and frowned at the form huddled against the wall.

Coco had stopped shouting some time ago and simply hung in place. Her breathing was so subdued Nora couldn't tell if she was even conscious. Nora leaned over and hissed at her:

"Coco, snap out of it."

Silence. Nora pursed her lips, then shuffled as close as the manacles would permit and tried again:

"I know things are bad, but there has to be something we haven't thought of. I know we haven't seen eye to eye—"

"Nora, I'm sorry."

Nora blinked. "You're sorry?"

Coco continued, her voice limp and resigned: "For what I said about your team, in the village by the cliffs. I haven't been comfortable with our lack of familiarity as a unit, even though I knew you and Blake from Beacon. I wanted my team for this mission because of our experience in the field, and it put me on edge. I let my emotions get the better of me, and I said something completely uncalled for. If I'd been in your shoes, I would have showed a lot less restraint. There's not going to be a happy ending to this Nora. I'm not afraid of dying, but I hate that all I can do to make amends is offer some half-baked apology. You deserve better. You all do."

Silence filled the air again. The corner of Nora's mouth twitched.

"Thanks Coco. Maybe the next time we have an argument you'll apologize _before_ we're in mortal danger."

Coco let out a sharp laugh.

"I'm serious," Nora said. "We'll figure a way out of this. I can't pick locks, but if I really stretched I might be able to get a hold of a hairpin. What if I got that to you somehow?"

"It wouldn't work," Coco said. "The way the cuffs are designed I'd only be able to pick yours, not my own, and I can't exactly reach you while we're chained to the wall. I thought about using the gun in my left boot heel, but I've only got one shot, and I can only really point it at the wall behind me. I _might_ be able to get my legs free that way, but all that's going to do is attract attention while my hands are still shackled."

Nora paused, silent. Then she began to laugh. She bit her lip, trying to suppress her mirth, but a string of soft chuckles filled the cell. The harder she tried to keep it down, the more her body shook, jangling the chains at her ankles and wrists. Coco stared, trying to process Nora's reaction.

"What is it?" Coco asked.

Nora shook her head slowly. "You've been so focused on leading from the front, you never considered the rest of us. If it was a Taijitu, it would have bit you."

"I don't follow."

"Coco—what type of ammunition did you load in your boot?"

Coco straightened up. She looked at Nora and felt a grin creep across her face.

"Okay," Coco said, "Here's how we're going to play this."

...

Gunfire rang out and another Beowolf disintegrated, billowing around Reese as it blew up and past her.

"Through the eye!" Lloyd called out. "I bet you've never seen a shot like that before. I hear Mistrali like close range combat and explosives because none of them can shoot worth a damn."

Reese didn't hear the taunt. She was too focused on avoiding the Beowolves leaping at her, holding her knees tucked against her chest. Her thighs burned so much from holding the position that she had forgotten the pain in her wrists. She clenched her jaw with the effort, her screams of terror replaced by a protracted groan of pain and exertion. Her muscles spasmed, and her legs dropped half an inch for a few seconds before she could pull them back up.

She looked down at the pit. More Grimm had fallen in. Most were unable to climb out, but enough filled it that the smaller Beowolves could be seen clawing their way over the edge, or clambering over the backs of the other Grimm. A lean, rangy one was standing on the shifting sea of black and white directly beneath Reese, balancing atop the mass of Grimm like a surfer riding a wave. It stared up at her, drool dripping onto its chest. Reese felt her legs spasm again, but this time she failed to raise them all the way back up. The Beowolf crouched, waited until it felt the Grimm below it crest, then sprang up, its jaws aimed at her feet.

Reese thrust her legs straight down, kicking the Beowolf in the snout and whipping its head back. It fell back into the pit landing on its back. Another Grimm snapped at it in anger, sinking its teeth into the Beowolf's shoulder and dragging it below the surface of the writhing mass. Several yards to her left, another Beowolf was running towards the pit's edge. It bounded up the back of a much larger Beowolf, leaping through the air at Reese. Reese bent her legs at her hips, forming an 'L' shape with her body, and brought the backs of her heels down into the Grimm's neck in an axe kick. It shot down, landing near the pit's edge.

A moan escaped Reese's lips, and she let her legs dangle, unable to hold them up any longer. Relief washed over her, her legs thanking her for the break with a perverse burst of endorphins. She was so delirious from the pain that she barely registered the second Beowolf leaping up and soaring through the air.

Another shot rang out, striking the Grimm in the chest, and it tumbled limp into the pit, smoking. Lloyd lowered the gun a moment to shrug at Reese.

"Sorry about the wait," Lloyd said. "This magazine was a little wonky when I tried to load it. Keep it up though, we might actually beat the record."

Lloyd raised his rifle and three shots rang out. Two claimed the pair of Grimm closest to Reese.

The third clipped Lloyd on the shoulder.

His Aura absorbed the hit, but it knocked him back and made him drop his rifle. Another series of shots rang out, quickly dispatching another trio of Grimm outside the pit. The older Grimm and the more cautious young ones scattered. None of them strayed too far from Reese, but they were all watching the forest behind them, searching for the source of the shot. Reese just stared at the pit below, praying she'd be able to muster another kick if one of the Grimm inside leapt up again.

...

From a tall tree west of the pit trap, at the bottom of the mountain's slope, Sable peered through a rifle's scope, sitting on a limb with her back against the trunk. She anchored herself with two hands gripping the branch above her, while three more steadied the rifle atop her raised knee.

Blake should have snuck through the woods. Everyone in the White Fang knew of Adam's excessive emphasis on close range combat. He'd made it work by being selective of his unit's targets, never attacking anything that required sharpshooters unless other White Fang were on hand to assist.

But there it was again: A muzzle flash in the forest, a couple hundred yards back from the edge of the trees. Sable grinned training the rifle on the spot she'd seen. Then she froze as something rustled to her right. She drew a pistol with her sixth hand and spun, placing the barrel directly between Blake's eyes. Sable sneered at her.

"That wasn't very clever," she said.

In one flowing motion, Sable released a hand from the branch above her, drew a stiletto, and stabbed it down at Blake's arm. But before she could make contact, something slammed into Sable's back, ripping her out of the tree. Sable dropped her rifle, but managed to yank her attacker down as she fell. She slammed into the ground and rolled to her feet just in time to see Blake hit a log and burst into a cloud of smoke. Sable drew her curved knife and spun to brandish it alongside the stiletto, blocking a katana blade and a cleaver as the real Blake struck from behind.

"Not so rusty after all," Sable muttered.

Sable yanked a net from her back and swept it at Blake's legs. Blake hopped back from the attempt to trip her, giving Sable space to move. Sable drew a short sword with a slight forward curve, and gripped the net with a second hand, leaving her sixth hand free to grapple. She lunged forward, swinging the net to try to snare Blake, or feinting a swing to shepherd her movements. When she drew within arm's reach, she pressed harder, slashing with her three blades in a whirlwind of steel. The sheer ferocity of the attacks prevented Blake from doing anything more than blocking.

So Blake ran for the trees, running in a zigzag to avoid the Grimm, Sable's net, and rifle shots from Lloyd. Sable pursued her, vaulting a Beowolf in her path. As Blake reached the forest, Sable watched her leap into the lowest branches of a tree.

"You can't run forever, traitor!" Sable shouted. Sheathing her stiletto and sword, Sable climbed the tree with the ease of a normal person going for a light jog, flowing around the branches like water around rocks in a stream. She soon reached the top, where the tree limbs became thinner and more flexible. She found Blake standing on a branch a few yards across from her, gasping for breath, one hand steadying herself on the limb above her. Sable grinned.

"Looks like we do get to play with you after all."

Sable grasped her net with two hands and threw it. As she did, Blake leaned back, stretching the branch above her down to intercept the net. Then she released the branch to fling the net back at Sable. Blake's stomach lurched as she fell backwards. She channeled the momentum into a backflip, grabbing onto the branch below her as she fell, and her stomach lurched again as she jerked to a halt, hanging from the bouncing branch.

An enraged shout came from above her. Blake climbed back up to find Sable stuck to the tree. The net had wrapped partially around the trunk, pinning her in place. Blake walked around the trunk, nimbly stepping from branch to branch. Careful to touch only the edges of the net without the sticky coating, she pulled it tight around the tree, securing it in place.

Blake climbed to the ground, leaving Sable to writhe in her own snare. Most of the Grimm outside the pit had scattered, the occasional gunshot from the forest claiming them one by one. Blake walked within shouting distance of the fence, then cupped her hands around her mouth:

"I know you're still up there," She shouted at the watchtower. "And I know you can't move without my friend shooting you. This is going to go one of two ways: You can surrender, and I'll mention your cooperation to Vale when this is all over. Or you can choose between my friend shooting you when you pop out of cover, and me stabbing you when I climb up there. What's it going to be?"

There was a moment of silence. Blake took a step towards the tower. Then an arm shot out from behind the guard wall around the tower, withdrawing as fast as it had emerged. Blake watched a pair of round objects sail over the fence and past the pit, hitting the ground just beyond it and bouncing towards the trees. A hissing sound escaped when they stopped, and clouds of smoke began to billow out from the objects, obscuring the tower from the forest behind Blake. Blake turned back to the tower to watch Lloyd rise from behind the guard wall, brandishing his rifle.

"Oh come on," Blake said.

Lloyd fired twice. Blake dodged the first shot and deflected the second, retreating back to the forest's edge. She ducked behind a broad tree, sweat pouring down her brow, and weighed her options. She could wait out the smoke, but in that time Lloyd could shoot Reese or allow her to get eaten by the Grimm that were starting to return. Plus, there was no guarantee he didn't have more smoke grenades.

Blake's current level of Aura meant she couldn't rely on her Semblance alone to get to Lloyd, so she considered how her friends would have approached the problem. Weiss or Pyrrha would have tried to engage him from long range. Ruby would have run in, dodging with her Semblance, while Sun would have attempted the same thing and gotten shot. Yang would have _tried_ to get shot. Ren and Jaune would have faced the same problems she did now, while Nora would have blown everything up or—

Blake blinked, unsure if she'd had an epiphany or a mental breakdown. She shook her head, converted _Gambol Shroud_ into its hook form, and folded its ribbon into a length of material slightly longer than her arm span. She muttered an oath beneath her breath, then made the last preparation for her gambit: She panicked.

Adrenaline rushed through her as she released control of her emotions, causing the ribbon to shake in her hands. Her head grew faint as her breathing sped up, and she forced herself to calm just enough to keep from bolting. A few moments later, a crashing sound approached through the forest. One of the larger Beowolves emerged from the foliage staring at Blake. It stalked closer, wary of the strange huntress in its territory. Then it lunged forward, aiming for Blake's midsection.

Blake leapt to meet it, the ribbon stretched between her hands. She yanked it between the Beowolf's jaws, and tumbled gracelessly over its shoulders, landing so she was lying against its back. The Grimm growled and thrashed, trying to throw Blake off, and for a few moments Blake tumbled back and forth like a drunken pendulum, trying not to fall off. Then one lurch of the Grimm's body rolled her onto her stomach, and she rose to her knees, jerking the ends of her makeshift reins back as she placed herself astride the Beowolf's shoulders. She goaded it onwards towards the fence at a run.

Blake burst from the trees, lurching across the space between the woods and the fence as her unwilling steed took a zig-zagging path towards the watchtower. Yang or Nora would have shouted something intimidating. Blake just screamed. She had ridden halfway to the fence before Lloyd realized that Reese wasn't the one screaming. He saw the extra patch of white on the Beowolf's back and fired, but Blake's haphazard riding meant the shots merely grazed the Grimm beneath her or missed both of them entirely.

As she neared the fence the Beowolf pitched right, towards the pit of Grimm, and Blake's stomach turned to ice. She leaned the other direction until she was almost parallel to the ground, veering away at the last second, coming so close to falling in that she felt the Beowolf's hind leg stumble as it slipped on the pit's edge. The Beowolf charged forward, bounding up as it tried to buck her off, but Blake kept it pointed towards the fence.

It crashed into the chain link fence, warping it at the bottom, and Blake tumbled off. Before she could catch her breath, the Grimm slammed its claws down at her. She rolled left, then right, to dodge the strikes. A gunshot clipped its raised arm, staggering it, and she used the opportunity to scramble through the small, newly formed gap at the bottom of the fence.

She rose into a sprint on the other side, heading for the tower, and chanced a brief glance back at the fence. The Beowolf she had ridden was slumped on the ground, smoking, but more Grimm were trying to muscle past it to pursue her. Lloyd managed to prevent them from surging through the new gap or making it wider, but it required an almost constant rate of fire. Encouraged by that fact, Blake mounted the ladder to the tower and began climbing.

As she neared the top, she heard the floorboards above her shift. Blake climbed onto one of the struts supporting the tower on a side adjacent to the ladder, scaled the last fifteen feet to the guard wall, and vaulted over it, landing a kick on Lloyd's waist. He fell to the ground, landing halfway out of the tower. He scrambled back from the ledge, but before he could rise, Blake wrapped a length of the ribbon around his throat and pulled it tight. Lloyd tugged at the ribbon twice, then reached for the sword at his hip, only to find it missing.

There was a click, followed by a thrumming noise. Then Lloyd watched as his sword emerged from his chest, an inch right of his sternum. He gurgled, and went limp. Blake shoved him out of the tower with her foot and heard a wet crunch a moment later. She let out a heavy breath, gathered her weapons, and picked up Lloyd's rifle to finish off the rest of the Grimm roaming beyond the fence.

She turned back towards the crane to find herself staring at Sable. The spider Faunus was dangling upside down, gripping the crane's cable with her legs and two of her arms. She pressed her stiletto's point to Reese's throat, and held her curved knife to the rope suspending her from the crane's hook. Her mask was gone and there was a fury in her eyes, reined in to a simmer. Blake shivered at the look. Crazy enough to do anything, but sane enough to choose her moment well. It was a look she'd seen in Adam's eyes many times.

"Did you really think I'd make a net that I couldn't easily escape?" Sable asked. "Spiders never get caught in their own webs."

Blake hefted Lloyd's rifle, but before she could aim it at Sable's chest, Sable flipped down with an acrobat's grace, gripping the hook with two hands and hugging Reese with her remaining free hands, keeping the two blades in place the entire time. Reese looked away, but Sable turned her face back with the flat of the stiletto's blade.

"It's an easy shot," Sable said, her voice breezy, "But if you shoot me and I fall, I'll cut the rope on the way down. I've seen people fall in the pit plenty of times. They die fast, but not as quick as you'd think; confined Grimm fight over prey pretty viciously when they're that agitated. Drop the rifle."

"You're going to kill us either way," Blake said.

"Probably. But I can give your friend a gentler death if you play nice. Brutal dismemberment, or humane execution: Your choice."

Blake glared at Sable, unblinking. But after a few moments of tension, she laid down the gun. Reese grimaced, and Sable's eyes lit up with glee at both huntresses' reactions. She glanced over Reese's shoulder at the forest to find that the smoke from Lloyd's grenades had finally cleared. She hid as much of her body as she could behind Reese before turning back to Blake.

"Hands behind your head, traitor," Sable said.

Blake raised her hands to shoulder-height. "How are you holding up Reese?" she asked.

"I've been better," Reese said. "Might have another round left in me."

Sable pricked the point of the stiletto against Reese's throat. "Not another word." She looked at Blake. "I said hands behind your head."

Blake made a yielding gesture before lacing her fingers together behind her head. Sable nodded, satisfied, and tilted her head back towards the forest.

"Tell your friend to come down here, unarmed. If he doesn't show himself in the next minute, this one dies."

"He won't like that," Blake said.

"If he could have shot me without hitting this Mistrali, he would have done it already. Don't make me repeat myself."

Blake sighed, then slowly walked towards the edge of the tower. "We're doing it her way!" she called out to the forest. "Not ours. Come on out."

Blake's face fell and she met Reese's eyes. "I'm sorry."

Sable grinned. Ten slow seconds passed. Then a single gunshot broke the silence with a crack, followed by the ping of a ricochet off the arm of the crane. Blue-white flashes of electricity arced down the crane arm, travelling down the cable until it shocked Sable and Reese. They shouted in pain, their limbs seizing up as electricity cascaded down their bodies. Sable's hands gripped the hook hard enough to draw blood from her palms. Then as suddenly as the electricity had appeared, it blinked out.

Reese and Sable both went slack. But while Reese was still suspended by the rope, Sable had no such tether. She lost her grip and fell, losing hold of her weapons as she plummeted. She struck the edge of the pit at her waist, managing to grab hold of the earth outside the pit and arrest her fall. She began to crawl out, her movements sluggish, when something locked its jaws around her ankle.

She made a startled noise and began clawing at the earth with sudden vigor, pulling against the Grimm. Then another set of jaws locked around her opposite knee. A third seized her lowest right arm, while more teeth and a pair of claws seized her two of her left arms. The Grimm dragged Sable back into the pit.

She screamed, her free hands and her face carving furrows in the earth. She disappeared into the writhing mass of black and white and her screams grew agonized, drowning out the other horrific sounds from the pit, making Blake clamp her hands over her ears. Then there was a loud ripping sound, followed by a wet, choked scream. The area fell silent, save for the growls of the Grimm in the pit, and the occasional rifle shot exterminating the ones roaming outside it.

...

Reese blinked, dazed. She was on the ground, propped up against the wall of one of the outbuildings. Her head throbbed, making her wince, and she reached a hand up to massage it. Discovering her hands were free she sat bolt upright, fully awake. She frantically patted her pockets, searching for anything she could use as a weapon.

"Looking for this?" Blake appeared from the direction of the fence, Lloyd's rifle slung across her back. She held out Reese's unbroken revolver. Reese took it and stuck it in her sweatshirt pocket.

"You can take the rifle too," Blake said. "But it's as good as a club right now. I used the rest of the ammunition on the Grimm in that pit in case we retreat that way when—"

Reese wrapped her arms around Blake hard enough to stagger her, burying her face in Blake's shoulder. Her breath hitched a few times, but she managed to stifle most of her sobs. Blake rubbed her shoulder for a few moments, then gently pried her away.

"Are you going to be okay?"

"No," Reese said, her voice cracking. She drew a deep breath, and then her voice grew steadier. "But I can be a mess later. We need to help the others first."

Blake gave Reese a little smile, and Reese returned it, rubbing her eyes. Reese took the rifle from Blake and the two of them stalked back towards the main building.

"How did you get help that fast?" Reese asked.

Blake smirked and shook her head. "It turns out we have a lot of stubborn friends."

...

Far back in the forest, a rifle colored to match the ground and surrounding foliage protruded from beneath a thicket of bushes, resting on a folded vest. The person on the other side of the scope watched Blake and Reese enter the main building. A few of the bushes rustled, twisting the rifle to point skyward. The bushes took on a more obviously human shape, resolving into Royce struggling to his feet with one arm. His eyes twinkled.

"See y'all soon," he said.

Royce slung his rifle across his shoulder and gathered his vest. Then he slipped off to find a new vantage point, his Semblance shifting the color and texture of his body to blend into the forest night.

...

The cell opened again. Ash strode up to Coco, Karah at her side.

"The gunfire stopped," Ash said. "Why don't we see what's left?

Coco ignored her, letting her head hang. Ash tipped her chin up with the toe of her boot to meet her eyes. Coco stared back, her eyes flat. Ash made a disappointed groan. She released Coco's cuffs from the wall above her and secured them at her waist. Ash bent to release her feet from their shackles.

"Come now," Ash said. "Where's that fire of yours? I threaten a few of your friends and you just deflate? I didn't realize you were so brittle. Part of me hoped you really were as tough as the bravado you've displayed."

Ash pulled Coco up and brought her inches from her face. "Pain is sweeter when it's harder to elicit."

Coco lunged at Ash. Ash stepped back, but Coco's head still managed to clip her jaw. She seized Coco by the neck and shoulder, slammed her to the ground, then leapt atop her, pressing her knees into the huntress's stomach. Coco twisted and flexed, trying to contort herself into a position she could attack Ash from.

"I'll kill you!" Coco shouted.

"Try it," said Ash.

Coco growled and tried to kick Ash, her legs thrashing about. Karah moved to seize Coco's feet, and Coco responded by stabbing her heel out at him. He swatted her boot aside as the gun in the heel fired, rocking Coco and Ash to the side and knocking Ash off. Ash sat up, stunned.

Coco was staring wide-eyed at Nora. The smaller girl twitched a few times, then went limp as the last flashes of dust danced across her body. Karah's fists clenched, his knuckles turning white. Ash calmly stood up, dragged Coco back to the wall, and pressed her against it by her throat. Coco started to cough and wheeze. She tried to kick again, but Ash pinned her legs in place with her knees. Coco's vision blurred as Karah moved back alongside Ash, a knife in one hand.

"You knew we had plans for her," Ash said, her voice wavering with suppressed fury. "I suppose you'll have to be our replacement. How should we start?"

Karah flourished the knife. "Let's make sure she's not hiding any more tricks. Then let's do what I wanted to do to the short one: Take her apart, joint-by-joint. Start with the fingers, move to the wrist, and keep going up her arm until we reach the shoulder. I think that'll be a good start."

"What do you think, huntress?" Ash asked.

Coco mouthed words like a beached fish and made a rasping sound. Ash released a little pressure, and Coco managed a hoarse whisper:

"Checkmate."

The sound of metal snapping rapidly echoed in the cell like hail on a steel roof. Karah turned towards the sound and took a step forward, but before he could move any further he flew into Ash as Nora tackled both of them to the cell floor. Karah began to rise while Ash floundered beneath him, but Nora grabbed him by the back of his head and slammed him face-first into the wall. He slid down the wall and crumpled into a motionless heap.

Ash seized Nora in a headlock, lifting the smaller girl entirely off the ground. Without hesitating, Nora kicked off the wall with both feet and knocked Ash onto her back. Ash cried out in pain as her wings were crushed against the ground, and she released Nora, who climbed to her knees and began laying into Ash with her fists until she lay still. Nora knelt atop Ash for a moment, her shoulders heaving as she caught her breath. The only other sound in the room was Ash's weak breathing. Then Nora took one final breath, and searched Ash's pockets until she found a ring of keys. Coco stared in silence as Nora unlocked her shackles.

"Have I mentioned how glad I am that you accepted my apology?" Coco asked, massaging her wrists.

Nora let out a dry laugh, unlocking the remains of the shackles that dangled from her own wrists. "It would be nice, but you don't need to. Your body language is telling me you've accepted that I'm the superior huntress."

Coco scoffed and picked up Karah's knife. "You wish," she said. "Let's save Reese and finish this. After that, I'm going to show you why you're wrong—with my boots."

"I wouldn't have it any other way."


	13. Chapter 13

"Go left," Reese said.

"You're sure this is the way?" Blake asked.

"I was a little preoccupied with trying to untie myself, but this looks familiar."

Blake tilted her head in admission and continued down the hall. As they reached an intersection, she ducked around the corner and into a small side room.

Reese followed right behind her, closing the door just before the guard walked around the corner at the opposite end of the hall. Blake stood at the door with her ears pricked up until well after Reese had heard the footsteps pass and fade away. Blake peeked out the door, then they resumed their path through the building, slowly heading deeper inside the facility, moving closer to the mountain and the mine itself. They slipped past a few more guards, eventually reaching a hallway that terminated in a set of double-doors embedded in the rock face. Another hallway branched off to their right, running parallel to the mountain.

"Well?" Blake asked.

"I still thought I could get free in the beginning," Reese said. "I can't remember much of my surroundings from right after the cell. It might have been these ones."

Reese reached to open the double-doors, only for Blake to grab her by the shoulder and shake her head. She inclined her head towards the door leading to the hallway at their right.

"Someone thinks they're being clever," Blake murmured.

Blake pushed at one of the double-doors, then let it close as she and Reese took up positions either side of the door leading to the other hallway. The readied themselves to strike, Blake raising her katana and Reese brandishing the rifle like a club. Blake extended three fingers, lowered one, lowered a second—

The door burst open, trapping Reese against a wall. She swore as the door mashed her against the wall, and she heard a scuffle break out on the other side of the door. She kicked the door back, only for someone to pin her throat against the wall with their forearm.

"Reese?"

Reese felt the pressure lighten on her throat, and she blinked as she recognized Coco. Her weapon dangled from her free hand in its compact form, and a duffle bag hung from her shoulder. Her hair was a bird's nest, several large bruises covered her arms and face, and she smelled like a gym bag someone had left in a locker for a month, but it was Coco, in all her two-fisted glory.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

"We were coming to rescue you," Reese said. "What are you doing?"

"Coming to rescue you. But I guess we can skip that stage of the plan. Nora, this _is_ Reese I'm looking at, right? Not some hallucination?"

"Yep," Nora said.

Coco let go of Reese. Reese looked past Coco to see Blake extend a hand to help Nora to her feet. Nora waved her off, pushing herself up with her hammer. Coco handed Reese the duffle bag. Reese cocked an eyebrow at her.

"What's this?"

"We found the armory," Coco said. "Plenty of ammo in there for you, plus another gun. But it looks like you have that part covered. Once you're loaded up, we can move to the next step."

"Which is what, exactly?"

"We'll see if we can find a way to call out to Vale, then we'll head into the woods. With all the chaos you caused, we could last until Vale sends reinforcements. We might not be able to make it back to Crescent Hollow and hold the village, but we can lead the Fang here on a merry little chase through the forest."

"I think you're vastly overestimating our mobility," Blake said.

"I realize it's not ideal," Coco said, "But I don't think we're going to have much luck defending a spot in the base. Either way, we need to find a radio first. Did you guys see anything back that way?"

"Not really," Reese said.

"We haven't checked there yet," Blake said. She nodded towards the double doors.

Coco started to say something, when a siren began to blare through the building. Just beneath the siren, they heard the sound of running footsteps. The four of them ducked through the double-doors into an artificial cavern with three tunnels branching off from it in various directions. The area had been hollowed out from the mountain, but the relative newness of the trusses supporting two of the tunnels suggested that not all of them were part of the mine. Work lights on tripod stands lit the antechamber, and caged bulbs were strung along the ceiling of the tunnels, bathing the stone in harsh yellow light. Coco ground her teeth, looking at the tunnels.

"Nora," she said. "Think you can get us a little breathing room?"

"Step back," Nora said. Nora moved back from the doors while the other three huntresses retreated as far as they could from her. Nora fired three grenades at the ceiling above the doors, collapsing a section of the cavern into a pile of rubble, blocking both the doors they had passed through and the tunnel entrance adjacent to them.

One of the two remaining tunnels appeared to have been part of the original mine, judging by the aged supports and tools littering the sides. The other was much wider, built with newer supports, and was clear of obstructions along the tunnel. Tire tracks stretched down the tunnel. Reese tilted her head towards the newer looking tunnel, a questioning look on her face. Coco responded with a nod, and the four huntresses hurried down the tunnel as it curved through the mountain. At the end they came to a massive set of doors. The doors looked out of place in the tunnel; a pair of sliding steel panels set into the rock wide enough to drive a small truck through.

Nora spun the drum of her grenade launcher, but Reese just pushed the barrel down and shoved past her. She pried a panel beneath a keypad open with the bayonet on her revolver and started yanking wires out, stripping the insulation and pressing them together experimentally. A minute later, there was a loud beep and the doors slowly parted the width of a person's shoulders.

Blake, Reese and Coco slipped through. Nora stopped to unload a grenade from her launcher. She struck it against the door, shoved it in the maintenance panel, and ducked through the door. Once she was through Reese hit a close door prompt on the control panel inside the door and the doors sealed shut again. The grenade detonated, muffled by the door, but the door itself barely shook. The tunnel descended down a short incline before flattening out again. They reached the bottom of the incline and walked forward a short distance before they stopped and froze, stunned as they took in the room.

The tunnel emptied onto a large open space. The space spread back towards a wall with several doors set into it, all sliding metal ones like the one they had entered through. A small truck was parked near the largest door. The walls of the room were hewn from the stone and reinforced with metal panels in places, while the floor at the bottom was poured concrete. Lab tables and a few computer workstations filled half of the floor to the right, along with an array of equipment and scientific instruments, and a gunsmith's bench. A narrower tunnel branched off the left side of the room. A staircase in one corner led to a catwalk that ran around the room's second level, providing access to a handful of smaller rooms with normal doors.

"Well I know _I_ certainly didn't expect this," Blake said.

Coco flexed her fingers against the handle of her gun. "Reese, see if you can find anything useful on the lab floor. Nora, give her a hand. Blake, you scout the tunnel and I'll take a look upstairs."

Blake stalked down the tunnel, passing around a gentle curve to a cave-in, the way forward blocked by a jumble of boulders and stalactites. If even if there was a way for their enemies to flank around on the other side of the rockfall, they wouldn't be able to dig through quickly or without notice. She began moving back the way she'd come, ducking into a passage branching off the tunnel halfway between the dead-end and the main room, her eyes scanning the inside of the entrance for a source of light.

Her ears twitched. Something had moved the second she'd stepped into the side-passage. She pressed herself against wall and stalked forward, squinting through the dark. The bars of cages and cells marked the walls at regular intervals, and one large cell stood at the rear of the hall. The door for that cell was slightly ajar, and there were a few scattered objects on the floor, but nothing moved within. Something moved again, and the sound of something dragging along the ground drifted from one of the cells.

Blake approached the locked cell the sound had come from. A familiar odor hit her nose and she clenched her weapons tighter. Peering through the bars she saw three Komodos towards the back of the cell, muzzled to prevent them from chewing through the bars. They growled at her presence, but didn't make any move towards her.

More sounds came from down the hall. In the next cell over, a pair of Boarbatusk scraped at the ground with their horns. The next two cells contained multiple Beowolves, pacing next to the bars and occasionally lashing out at Blake as she passed by. The cells behind her held a trio of Ursae and a Beringel. The other cells held a mix of the more common varieties of Grimm and a few smaller Grimm she didn't recognize. All except the open one at the end and the last cell on the left:

Up close, she recognized the objects in the open cell: Piles of jackets, boots, and small personal items like wallets and hats. Blake set her jaw, and gripped the bars of the cell until her knuckles turned white. She hadn't expected success finding the missing villagers, but that didn't make the truth easier to bear. She released her grip on the cell and turned her attention to the one to the left.

This one no longer had a door. Inside, several figures lay on the ground, dead. On closer inspection, they were all White Fang. Some of them looked like they'd been trapped under something heavy, their limbs crushed. Others had varying degrees of burns, or gunshot wounds from when their Aura had burst. One was just a massive form shrouded with a sheet. After failing to locate any supplies, Blake turned to leave—then she stopped.

Two men of the dead men lay on gurneys. Multiple lacerations covered their arms and chests. Some appeared to be from bladed weapons, but Blake couldn't recall fighting either of them. No one on her team or in the village had used edged weapons capable of such wounds. Royce was the exception, but the cuts were too clean to have been delivered by a halberd. Upon closer inspection, Blake noticed a set of irregular tears running in parallel diagonally across one man's belly. They looked like claw marks, but Blake had never encountered or read about any Grimm so small.

Something crashed back in the main room, agitating the Grimm in the pens. Shouting and more crashing followed. Blake gave the two dead bodies one last glance, then drew her weapons and ran to rejoin her team.

…

Reese moved aside a set of electrician's tools at one workstation and found two burnt out cloaking devices, opened to display their inner wiring. The crystal inside had dulled, like the one inside the unit they'd found after Reese had set off the EMP. She opened the flap on a satchel she'd found hanging from the back of a chair and placed the units inside.

Looking around Reese saw more of the same throughout the lab floor: Numerous workspaces strewn with beakers or tools, and the occasional computer terminal. Seeing one terminal nearby, she shrugged and powered it on. Nora approached from across the room

"You're telling me you can hack, too?"

"No," said Reese. "We're just lucky they didn't expect to have visitors. There's no password on this."

"What are you going to do? Email Vale?"

"I've heard worse ideas."

The computer finished starting up. There didn't appear to be any sort of communication program on the desktop or in the application list, but there was a folder entitled 'Facility Logs'. Reese opened it to find a series of folders arranged by date, the most recent of which was dated a few days prior. She opened the folder and read the lone text file within:

 _The assault on the village failed. All project activities are suspended until the huntresses from Vale and the remaining village have been dealt with._

Nora made an impatient noise. Reese frowned at the lack of new information and accessed a folder dated one month prior. This one held multiple files, photos, and charts. Reese opened the journal file in the folder and skimmed it:

 _We're expending test subjects too fast. Between weapons testing, pacifying our Grimm when they become agitated, and the live combat tests, we'll be out of warm bodies within a week. There's only two villages left in the region, and they're both catching on. Ash had the foresight to neutralize the village with the broadcast tower prior to the region's inhabitants realizing something was amiss, but we may not have the resources to take both remaining villages quietly. Our cryptic benefactors have been even less responsive than usual. Given its heavy use of test subjects, our "joint project" is paused for now._

Nora tugged Reese's shoulder. "Let's go."

"Why?" Reese said.

"Looking for the villagers in that file? There's still places we haven't checked."

"You go, I'll see if I can find anything else useful."

Reese started to turn back to the computer, but Nora turned her around to face her. Her face was stern.

"People need our help. Get up."

"I know that, Nora," said Reese. "If I keep digging around—"

"—you won't have to fight any Grimm?" Nora finished. Reese stared at her feet. Nora rolled her eyes, muttering and began to stalk towards the doors in the back wall. Reese looked back at the list of folders, examining the dates closer. She noticed a gap of a week or so between the most recent folder and the second most recent one. She opened the second most recent one. This one contained multiple sub-folders, but she ignored them in favor of the log entry. She read the first line, then stood up, turning towards Nora.

"Nora!" she called. "Take a look at this."

Nora stopped, then strode back, grumbling to herself. She scowled at Reese, then at the computer screen. Her scowl dwindled to nothing as she read the first line. She leaned on the desk and rubbed her face in exhaustion.

 _All test subjects are deceased,_ the first line read. _Work on all projects is suspended until we can acquire the remaining village's inhabitants. Our scouts indicate that the village shouldn't pose a challenge, but they also reported signs of huntress activity in the area near Razor Ridge. This was inevitable after the discovery of the spy in Perfection. What was surprising was that they've apparently managed to fly under the radar for quite some time. Since this revelation, almost everyone has been working overtime in the field to track them down._

 _Despite the momentary lapse in experiments and the outside complications, our overall outlook is actually very positive. Subject Eight's combat tests gave us a vast amount of useful data. Though many of our goals for the subject remain elusive, I think we may achieve a breakthrough with a few more months of testing. Even if we cannot attain full combat capability, we should at least be able to build a collar capable of the control we require. Furthermore, pitting Subject Eight against a trained huntsmen team, even a novice one, should provide better data than simply throwing peasant farmers at it._

Nora looked up and pointed her chin at the screen.

"Anything else?"

"Not in this one," Reese said. She backed out into the previous folder and scanned the names: Physiology Charts, Post-Mortem Evaluations, Intelligence Assessments…and Combat Tests. Reese felt her stomach quiver. She looked at Nora, who nodded at her, then she opened the last folder.

Multiple video files filled the folder, all marked by date and time. Reese opened one. The camera peered through a window into an empty room with metal walls and a drain in the floor. Two men and a woman dressed similarly to Crescent Hollow's villagers stood backed against a wall, clutching a sword and some makeshift clubs. They stared at something off-screen in horror, flinching when it growled.

Something scraped against the floor, and the man with the sword charged forward, shouting in terror and fury. There was a shrill cry, like a mountain lion screaming, and the man's cries stopped. The woman and the other man shrank back, staring wide-eyed at the thing off screen. A moment later, the dead man's sword shot through the air like a spear, pinning the other man to the wall by the shoulder. The woman screamed and started tugging at the door set into the wall behind her. Something the size of a person pounced on the woman, letting out that same grating screech and began tearing into her.

Reese turned away before the blur of motion hit the woman. She clutched the desk to keep from trembling and made a couple choking sounds. Her empty stomach was the only thing that kept her from vomiting. She stayed hunched over, forcing herself to breathe. In the background, the woman's screams had stopped, replaced by the man begging.

"Turn it off," Reese said, her voice shaky. She looked at Nora. "Nora, please—"

Nora was staring at the screen, her mouth parted. Her eyes were wide, but they didn't show fear or terror. It was something else, and its presence unsettled Reese. Before she could ask Nora about her reaction, the small girl bolted for the back wall, and began flinging open the doors, frantically searching the rooms.

Reese watched Nora in confusion, then forced herself to look back at the screen. She flinched and covered her eyes as she watched the thing in the video tear into the final villager. Peering through her fingers, she saw a cloak shrouding all but the creature's arms. The left arm was black with sharp claws and bone white spines, but the right was humanoid, devoid of any skeletal plating or growths, and pale. Too pale for a Grimm's flesh. The cloak fell away from the things head and shoulders, revealing more unusual coloration. The color itself wasn't odd, but the amount and shade of it was wrong. The creature held the villager in place with its claw and stabbed him in the neck with a weapon. It looked like a large dagger, or a short sword—

Reese gasped, pressing her hands to her mouth.

She understood.

…

"Come on," Coco said, gentle but insistent. The search had frustrated Coco so much that she'd almost missed the old base radio, nestled under a pile of papers in the back corner of the fourth room. She'd felt a small spark of hope when it crackled to life without any trouble. Tuning the damn thing to the right frequency was a struggle thanks to a missing knob and dilapidated displays, but after a few minutes Coco was rewarded with a channel that played four tones in a steady monotonous pattern. She felt her heart leap and pressed the transmit button on the microphone.

"Vale Cove, this is Coco Adel of provisional team CNBR, come in, over."

There was a moment of silence that seemed to stretch for hours before the radio crackled back:

"Good to hear your voice Miss Adel, you had us worried, what's your status, over."

Coco leaned back in her seat and punched the air in triumph before replying:

"We're all kinds of FUBAR right now. My team managed to escape hostile forces but recapture or death is an imminent possibility. There's also a village of approximately 200 civilians in need of defense. Unsure of the number of combatants, but they are a highly dangerous White Fang splinter group, utilizing experimental weapons and local Grimm. Request reinforcements for immediate assistance, over."

The dispatcher on the other end of the radio requested coordinates from Coco, and she supplied them. She hadn't seen the mining camp's location on a map, but when she described the facility the dispatcher assured her they knew the location. Afterwards, Coco heard a rustling on the other end of the radio.

"Miss Adel." Councilor Stonebridge's voice came over the radio, calm and measured. "I'm glad to hear that you've survived. Is Miss Valkyrie still active, over."

"We're all alive and mobile, Sir," Coco said. "Hell, she's probably the healthiest fighter we have thanks to that Semblance of hers, over."

"Is she in your immediate presence? Ambassador Sylva and I need to speak with her."

Coco's brow furrowed at the sudden terseness in Stonebridge's voice. Why on Remnant did they want to speak with her? Coco opened her mouth to reply, when a loud boom came from downstairs, like two cars crashing into each other. Coco swore.

"Trouble downstairs," Coco said. "I'll get her on the line ASAP, Adel over and out."

Coco burst onto the catwalk and looked over the railing. The largest door set into the rear wall curved back into the room beyond like a small train had plowed through it.

She ran to the stairs, down towards the door, her feet clanking on the metal slats. She met Blake at the breach and they passed through it to find a smaller version of the lab they had just left. The rear of the room had a control console that looked into a small room through a reinforced window. In the back of the innermost room a tall metal tube as wide as a doorframe stood at the left wall, rising from a base of machinery. Conduits and cables crisscrossed the ceiling hanging down to connect to the machinery, and a door was set into the opposite wall. Reese stood in front of the control console, her arms spread as she tried to block Nora from touching it. The two of them were shouting.

"Open it, or get out of the way!" Nora said.

"Nora, that is a very bad idea!" Reese said. "You watched that video, you know how dangerous that is. Let's stop and think for a minute, otherwise that thing—"

Nora seized Reese by her collar and flung her back towards the entrance. Blake and Coco parted to keep from being knocked over as she struck the floor and skidded past them. Before either of them could react, Nora pressed a few buttons on the console. The door across from the tube opened and the metal panels around the tube itself slid away with an almost silent hiss, releasing a cloud of mist. Nora sprinted through the door, and the other three huntresses followed.

As they passed through the door, the mist billowed away to reveal the contents of the tube. Reese stood at the rear of the group and shivered, but forced herself to not look away. Blake's ears pointed straight up and she gasped. Coco felt her jaw drop.

"Oh my god."

A figure floated suspended in fluid inside the tube, dressed in a bodysuit like the ones the other Black Fang had worn, minus the armor panels. The upper sleeves had been removed to attach medical monitoring equipment to the figure's arms, and an oxygen mask was strapped to her face.

Her left arm—her entire left side—was the black of Grimm flesh, marked by the odd spine or bit of bone plating, though the plated areas were so sparse they appeared to be a skeletal psoriasis instead of armor plating. Her right side was pallid, like a person that hadn't seen the sun in months. On the Grimm side of her face pointed teeth jutted past her lips like fangs, and a bone mask like those the White Fang imitated curved around her head, stopping at her nose. Jagged red veins trailed down her cheeks from her eyes like tears, but the other half of her face was otherwise the same. Her hair was still the same vibrant red, and in place of her circlet a pair of horns extended from the top of her head.

Nora appeared to wilt. Her hammer dropped from her fingers. She reached out a hand to touch the plexiglas tube.

"Pyrrha," she whispered.


	14. Chapter 14

Coco approached the cylindrical tank, looking at the half-Grimm huntress floating inside. "This isn't just grotesque," Coco said. "This is impossible. Forget that they fused Grimm parts onto a human body, I heard there wasn't anything left of Pyrrha after Beacon."

"We don't know that," Blake said. "Ruby was the one person who might have watched her die, and she was unconscious when they brought her to the safe zone. I left before she woke up, but there's no guarantee she remembers what happened at the top of the tower, or if it was accurate."

"You don't even know if that's her," Reese said, massaging the shoulder she'd landed on. Nora made a quiet hostile sound, but Reese continued: "Yeah, the human half looks like every promotional image I've ever seen of her, but you didn't see the video Nora and I did. It used weapons, but it didn't fight like her. It was wild, like a gorilla with a hatchet. And it never used her Semblance. Maybe that thing _is_ partially Pyrrha Nikos, but it doesn't have her soul."

Nora balled her fists. "You don't know that."

"I don't, but it's a pretty solid guess. Either way, I hope Coco got a hold of Vale. They're going to lose their heads when see what we've found."

Coco and Blake exchanged a glance, then looked at Nora. Nora pressed both hands against the tube, her face unreadable. Blake took a step forward.

"Nora," Blake said. "Something's been bothering me since I joined the rest of you in Vale. You left the rest of JNPR after one of the worst days of your lives. I thought Vale had blackmailed you somehow, but I was wrong. They knew about this, didn't they?"

Silence. Coco clenched her jaw and stared at Nora. After a moment, Nora sighed.

"Vale didn't know for sure," Nora said. "But they thought it was possible. Their intelligence units heard rumors. They heard about strange things happening in this region, so they dispatched a spy to infiltrate the White Fang operating here by posing as a member from a different branch. He managed to communicate some information back that suggested they might have her here, but he broke cover trying to save villagers in Perfection before he could confirm it. There was no guarantee he was right."

"Why the hell didn't they tell me?" Coco snapped, pushing past Blake. "I was supposed to be the goddamn leader of this mission and somehow they forgot to mention that this was search and rescue. If they thought this was a remote possibility, they should have at least told _me_ so we would be prepared. _You_ should have told me!"

Nora turned to look at Coco, her face weary. "They wanted to ensure that the White Fang didn't know how much Vale knew. That meant telling one person. But Vale's spy mentioned they had a skilled interrogator. They bet on no one asking me. They thought that everyone would pay attention to the team leader, or the defector. But no one would ever guess that Vale would trust quirky, scatterbrained, Nora Valkyrie with sensitive information. Why bother torturing her?"

She gave them a humorless smile. "Plus, if they were right? If she was here? If the White Fang caught us and decided to interrogate me? They knew that I would do anything for Pyrrha. You weren't deficient Coco, I just had something no one else could bring to the table."

Coco started towards Nora, but Blake held out an arm to stop her. She halted and fumed.

"Okay," she said, barely reining in the frustration in her voice. "We'll deal with this later. Vale's on their way, but they won't arrive for hours. Our White Fang friends will probably break through the door by then. Let's fortify this room as much as we can, patch ourselves up a bit—"

"You're lying."

Everyone turned to Reese. Her eyes were fixed on Nora, who looked like she was trying to kill Reese by looking at her.

"Shut up," Nora said. Her voice was quiet, but hard and cold.

"Vale knew Pyrrha was here," Reese continued. She started walking towards Nora. "Why else would they commit so much time and effort to this? Sure, there's only four of us, but as awful as this is, Vale's dealing with much bigger problems right now, so they deployed a skeleton crew. They picked a leader who was competent but expendable, a White Fang defector they could somewhat trust, a heavy hitter that was committed to the mission, and one humble specialist."

"Shut up. That doesn't prove anything."

Reese scoffed. "At the risk of sounding self-absorbed, I'm the missing piece here: There's plenty of huntsmen who know their way around exotic weapons. Why go out of the way to recruit some low-level tinkering huntress from another kingdom?"

Reese pointed at the tank in front of them.

"That machinery is very difficult to transport active" she said. "The only person that could move Pyrrha like that would be a technician untrained in huntsmen skills—an even bigger liability than me—or someone who met the minimum academy standards that had enough of a knack for tech to keep it working until they got her back to Vale. I haven't worked much with medical equipment, but I could jury rig it to run off a generator or Dust batteries with my Semblance. And the best part is that if we fail, I'm an acceptable loss. If we succeed, Mistral and Vale can convince me to keep quiet. But I think everyone expected us to fail, even you Nora. Because Vale didn't trust Coco to do her job, and since you kept this to yourself, I guess you didn't trust us either."

Nora backhanded Reese hard enough to knock her to the ground. Coco surged forward, grabbed Nora by her collar, and pinned her to the closest wall. Nora pressed against Coco's shoulders and kicked her dangling feet, but the taller huntress held fast and shook Nora, glaring at her.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" she shouted at Nora. "It's bad enough that you went along with Vale and had us risk our lives under false pretenses. If you had told us what had been going on, we might have volunteered! But you didn't just lie to us, you didn't include your own team. Did you want to risk someone else dying instead of one of them, or did you just not trust them? Because either way, Ren and Jaune would be very disappointed with you if they found out you hid this from them."

"YOU DIDN'T LOSE ANYONE AT BEACON! YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT IT'S LIKE!" Nora pressed her face an inch from Coco's and bellowed at her. "They just said she'd be here, they didn't know if she was alive, or dead, or trapped somewhere in between! Look at her, we don't even know if we can cure her, we don't know if that's still her in there. Losing Pyrrha was awful, but watching Jaune and Ren die inside made it even worse. I didn't want to give them false hope just so they could lose her again."

Nora's breathing grew ragged and high-pitched. "What if you'd lost Fox? Had him dangled in front of you, then had him taken away again? What if it had been Yatsuhashi? Or Velvet?"

Nora went limp. She tried to say something else, but instead broke into a series of hitching sobs. Coco sighed and set Nora down. She pulled the shorter girl into a hug, holding her until she felt her relax. Coco didn't break the embrace, but she drew back enough to look Nora in the eyes.

"I'm still angry with you for lying to us," Coco said. "But I forgive you. When this is done, you and I are going to have a long talk, preferably over a bottle of something strong and expensive. That sound like a plan?"

Nora sniffled and nodded. She wiped her eyes with the heel of her hand and retrieved her hammer.

"I feel like breaking everything," she said, managing a weak smile.

"Good," Coco said. "There's a lot of people to break."

"About that," Reese said, rubbing her jaw. "What's the plan? We're still running on fumes, and we're all running low on ammo, even with Coco's gun and the stuff you guys snagged from the armory. The door here is toast, and there's not any good place to set up a barricade back in the other room. We could blow the tunnel, but we might not be able to get back out again."

"I have an idea," Blake said. She told them. Reese leaned back against a wall, slid down it to sit on the floor, and placed her face in her hands.

"Oh, you're the worst," Reese said.

…

The door to the lab was constructed from thick steel, almost impossible to blow a hole in without destroying the room on the other side. But as strong as the stone of the tunnel itself was, it was still only stone. Outside the door, one of the soldiers finished drilling the final hole in the rock around the door frame. He slid an explosive charge in, tamped rock over it, and ran back down the tunnel to the assembled splinter group members.

Ash tightened her grip on the weapon at her side to prevent herself from wincing. Her Aura had held up for a while, but she'd lost some of the range of motion in her wings, and her face was swollen with bruises. The ginger needed to suffer, but really any of them would do. It would be slow: Exhaust their Aura. Break their limbs in the smallest increments. Rupture things inside them with her Semblance, maybe use heat or electricity on them first. Finish it off by tossing them to the Grimm. She could make it a morale-booster if they took more than one alive, split everyone into teams and see who could cause the most pain for the longest period of time. One of her men approached, breaking her reverie. He inserted a wire into a handheld detonator and offered it to Ash. She took it, her finger brushing the trigger.

"Everyone ready?" she asked.

When she heard no disagreement, she turned to the door and squeezed the trigger. One set of explosions shattered the stone around the door, while a second set flipped the door forward onto its inner face. Ash's forces, about twenty in total, moved through the smoke with their weapons raised.

Ash scanned the lab as she stepped inside. The room was empty. Still, something was off, slightly different. She raised her weapon, a jitte with a long hook, and tread forward with caution. Something moved by the side tunnel. She spun towards it and let out a screech, using her Semblance to channel it down the jitte and direct it towards the tunnel, concentrating the sound waves around the entrance in a quick pulse. A few sensitive soldiers near Ash grunted in the pulse's wake, but they were drowned out by cries of pain from within the tunnel. Following the voices, Ash noticed a small barricade constructed from desks and crates, a meter back from the tunnel's mouth.

The ginger-haired huntress and the Mistrali popped up from behind the barricade, firing off a pair of grenades and a few bursts of Dust rounds. The White Fang returned fire, and the two huntresses retreated down the tunnel.

"ADVANCE!" Ash shouted, projecting with her Semblance. "SHOW NO MERCY!"

The White Fang surged forward into the side-tunnel off the lab, pursuing them down the tunnel and into the side passage. They fired after the fleeing huntresses, clipping the ginger's shoulder. Her Aura flared and she winced, but she managed to make it into the cell at the rear of the hall just behind her companion, slamming the door shut as she entered. Inside the cell was another makeshift barricade. Blake and Coco stood behind it, pointing their weapons out at the assembled White Fang. Ash halted halfway down the passage. She bared her teeth.

"How desperate," Ash said. "Even if you won your silly little siege from in there, how do you expect to get out?"

"I have a key," Coco said.

"Oh do you now?"

Coco leered at Ash. "I have lots of them."

Without seeing what Coco had done, Ash made the connection. Her heart leapt into her throat. She turned to tell her men to fall back, but Blake had already aimed her pistol. Blake fired, striking the first improvised charge they'd crafted from one of Nora's last grenades. A chain reaction of small explosions burst at each lock along the cells of one wall. Blake fired a second shot, and the cell locks on the other side all detonated too. The assembled White Fang had made it three paces before the contained Grimm burst from their cells and attacked them.

The Komodos were still unable to bite, but their strong tails knocked several soldiers down before they were taken out. The Boarbatusk scattered four men like bowling pins and gouged a fifth, then went down in a hail of gunfire. The chaos the two species had sown in the enclosed space allowed the Ursae and Beowolves to subdue more men than they should have been able to under normal circumstances. An Ursa pinned a man as tall as Clay to the floor, placed its jaws around his head, and pulled until the man's Aura depleted and his head tore free. Half of the Beowolves had cornered most of the soldiers, while the other half and the Beringel chased the rest of the White Fang out the way they had entered. Ash's screech, and bursts of gunfire echoed from outside.

Once or twice the White Fang began to mount an effective defense, but CNBR stopped them, taking potshots at anyone who looked composed or able to rally the other men. Defending against the Grimm and the huntresses diffused the White Fang's efforts, trapping them in a chaotic exchange of claws, blades, and gunfire. After a few short minutes, the hallway was filled with dead bodies and prowling Grimm. Several of the latter were beginning to stalk towards the cell at the rear of the hall. Reese turned white as she gripped her weapon.

"Relax," Coco said. She strode towards the cell door and deployed _Belle Mort_. "This is the easy part."

Coco nodded and Blake shot the charge they had placed on the lock to their own cell. The door fell out and Coco opened fire, filling the hallway with a hail of bullets. In the space of a breath she shredded the Beowolves and the smaller Grimm that filled the hall. The three Ursae roared and tried to lumber towards them. One went down immediately, another moved a few cells closer. The third, far older than the previous two, had a much thicker bone mask. It pushed forward, staggering through the gunfire, before finally collapsing an arm's length from the cell door.

With the Ursae down, Coco collapsed her gun and led the way back towards the main room, Nora trailing at her right. The lab floor was trashed. The workstations at the far side were scattered, the desks and tables upended by the Grimm. Three Beowolves were gnawing at one of the bodies near one the bottom of the staircase. A pair of White Fang soldiers sat backed into a corner, surrounded by smoking Grimm, injured but still alive. A howl drifted from the entrance tunnel, but the echoes made it difficult to determine just how close it was.

"I'm going to play Whack-a-Grimm," Nora said. She hefted her hammer and advanced towards the Beowolves. Blake watched her leave.

"Nora can take care of herself, but should we—"

"You go," Coco said. "Reese and I will handle the loose ends."

…

The surviving White Fang drifted at the edge of consciousness. After disarming them, Coco made certain they were relatively stable, then she and Reese dragged them into one of the rooms along the back wall and locked them inside. Nora and Blake met them at the back lab's door. Nora carried her hammer over her shoulder, a determined look on her face, while Blake kept glancing towards the entrance tunnel.

"You hear something?" Reese asked Blake, pointing her chin towards the tunnel's mouth.

"No," Blake said. "Just a weird feeling. Let's get Pyrrha ready to move."

Apprehension crossed Reese's face, but she nodded. Blake and Nora led the way into the back lab and moved towards the observation room, while Coco and Reese took up the rear.

The moment Reese stepped through the door an ear-piercing screech sounded from behind them. Though short, it was loud enough to make all four of them scream and flinch in pain, clamping their hands over their ears. Reese turned back just in time to see a blur rushing at her from the ceiling outside the door. She dove to the floor and it passed over her. Blake was already curled up on the floor, her arms wrapped around her head to protect all four of her ears, but Coco and Nora didn't turn in time. The blur clipped Coco's arm, spinning her to the side, and it struck Nora in the chest at full force, sending her sliding across the floor.

Ash stood, her shoulders heaving, her jitte raised to strike anyone that moved against her. Nora began to rise, hefting her hammer. Ash pointed the jitte at Nora and shrieked again. A column of air the diameter of a grapefruit shot out from the tip of the jitte, rippling the air. The sound hurt everyone's ears, but the column of air physically knocked Nora off her feet again. She climbed to her knees, and remained doubled over as Ash strode towards her. The bat Faunus wound up and swung at Nora's head. Nora ducked away from Ash's swing, but the weapon struck her on the shoulder and rolled her over.

Ash raised the weapon over her head to crack open Nora's skull, when gunfire whizzed by her wings and shoulders. She zig-zagged away from Nora, turning to see Reese firing the White Fang rifle at her. The shock from the initial sonic burst had degraded her aim, but she was accurate enough to repel Ash without landing a direct hit. Ash heard gears whir and looked to see Coco deploying _Belle Mort_. Its barrels spun, sending a hail of gunfire after Ash.

Ash dove to the ground and slid in front of Pyrrha's tank, forcing Coco and Reese to cease firing. She channeled her Semblance down the jitte twice in quick succession. The first blast drove Coco back. A series of harsh snaps sounded from inside her gun, and Coco dropped to her knees clutching her ears. The second blast was more sustained. It ripped Reese's weapon from her hands and blew her into a wall. Ash fired a short burst at ground beneath her feet, launching her up and forward. Though she couldn't launch unassisted, her wings still spread far enough for her to glide. She swooped down at Reese, aiming a swing at her head, bearing down on the dazed huntress.

Coco slammed into Ash from the side, wrapping her arms around her torso and gripping tight as they tumbled across the ground. They rolled until Coco had pinned Ash to the floor. A 'pop' came from beneath Ash and she cried in agony. She drew a breath for another sonic attack, but Coco slammed her fist into Ash's throat. Ash made a wheezing noise and struck Coco's temple with her jitte, letting her escape and climb to her feet. As Ash stood she looked back to find her wing flopping like a dead flower, dislocated where it connected to her shoulder. She turned back to see Coco heft _Belle Mort_ and squeeze the trigger. The gun made a grinding sound, slowly rotating two barrels without firing, followed by a loud clank as the barrels locked up. Ash let out a dry laugh.

"Fancy weapons always become fancy dead weight," she rasped.

Coco squeezed the conversion switch. The gun made another grinding sound, then collapsed into its compact form. Coco assumed a defensive stance.

"Dead weight can still crack your head open," Coco said. Her eyes were defiant, but her free hand was clutching her head where Ash had struck it.

Ash thrust her weapon forward in a feint, spun to swing at Coco's neck—then stepped back deflecting a blade aimed at her ribs. She assumed a defensive stance that let her watch Coco and her new assailant.

Blake stood ready, wielding both halves of _Gambol Shroud_. She wobbled a bit on her feet, still unsteady from the attack on her sensitive hearing. She'd stuffed gauze into her ears and bound it in place with the ribbon she used to tie her hair. Ash would have laughed at her appearance had she not looked so furious. Instead, she bared her teeth at the pair.

"Good," Ash said. "This won't be boring."

…

Reese rolled onto her hands and knees. Her ears were still ringing, and it felt like someone had rammed steel spikes into them. The rest of her head wasn't fairing much better, as a stabbing pain pulsed in her temples. She retrieved the combat rifle and forced herself to stand, bracing herself against the wall as she regained her balance.

To her left, Coco and Blake were fighting what should have been a one-sided match with Ash, but fatigue was catching up with them. Coco's strikes were sluggish and easy to read, while Blake's were tentative. She was moving faster than Coco but her retreats were slower than usual. If her attack didn't land a decisive blow on Ash, she wouldn't be able to evade the counterattack. The two huntresses had forced a stalemate by carefully timing their attacks, but Ash appeared to have more stamina than either of them, despite her injuries.

Reese aimed the rifle. The barrel swung drunkenly and she swore. Her coordination was still shot. She staggered forward, the gun held ready to fire from the hip if she got a reasonably clear shot. They just had to hold out until Nora could rejoin them. As ragged as they were, Ash couldn't fight all four of—

Reese stopped. Where was Nora?

Looking towards the Pyrrha's tank, Reese saw Nora slowly edging sideways towards the far side of the observation window, her eyes fixed on a point on the other side of the glass. Before she could slip out of view of the window, her eyes widened and she bolted the opposite direction. The metal door Nora had bent back earlier flew through the reinforced glass, impacting the spot where she had stood. She ran towards the fight between Ash and the others, only for a large Grimm to climb through the window and jump into her path.

A Beringel. Its arms were like curving muscled tree trunks, and its hands were large enough to envelop Reese's head and shoulders. Bone plating protected the ape's forearms, chest, belly, spine, and massive shoulders, and demonic fangs lined its squat sturdy jaw. It roared at Nora, rearing up on its hind legs to beat its chest before slamming back down on all fours, rattling the floor beneath them. Nora squared her shoulders at the Grimm. Then she spun her hammer, converting it into its grenade launcher form, and pulled the trigger. It clicked, empty.

Nora swore, leaping back as the monster slammed its fists down where she had been standing a moment before. She switched her weapon back to its hammer form and landed a hit on one of the Grimm's fists. It roared in pain, then began swinging at Nora, forcing her to hop back twice before she could swing again. This time its fist met her hammer before she could bring her swing to full strength. The strike made her rock back on her heels, forcing her to stagger backwards to keep from falling over.

Reese stood rooted to the floor, her eyes wide. The rifle shook in her hands. The Beringel didn't have acid spit like the Komodo, but it was quick, and its strikes and furtive movements around Nora suggested it was more cunning than it appeared. Even on all fours the Grimm towered over Nora, its shoulders broad enough that all four huntresses could ride it. A massive enemy…and a massive target.

Reese aimed the combat rifle and held down the trigger. The shots flew out in a wide spray, but most of them struck home. Some dug into the flesh of the massive Grimm, but just as many ricocheted off the bone plates guarding its vulnerable parts. It roared, clearly irritated by the shots, but remained focused on Nora. It continued to swipe at her, forcing the small huntress to parry its fists instead of taking the offensive.

The gun clicked empty and Reese went to grab another magazine. A few loaded with regular rounds and one loaded with flame ammunition, but no electricity. She reloaded and began firing at the Beringel again.

…

Coco bellowed as she leapt forward, raising her compacted gun in an overhead swing. Ash side-stepped the blow and swung her weapon into Coco's lower back, sending the huntress sprawling onto the ground. She raised the jitte over her head to crack the back of Coco's head open, but as she swung down, she spun the weapon into a reverse grip, channeling the momentum into a reverse thrust. She felt the weapon strike something soft behind her and heard Blake gasp as the blow struck her stomach.

Ash spun and struck Blake's left wrist, making Blake drop the cleaver half of _Gambol Shroud_. Blake moved to counter with the katana half, but Ash trapped the blade between the jitte's prongs. She wrenched the katana from Blake's grasp with a quick twist of her weapon, then struck Blake in the face with the jitte's hilt. With a flowing series of swings she struck Blake's ribs, arms, and collarbone as she tried to protect her head and neck. Ash delivered a blow to the side of her knee, making her double over, then delivered a kick to Blake's lowered shoulder, knocking her onto her back. Ash swung one final time, slamming her weapon into Blake's ankle. Blake cried out and curled up on her side, clutching her foot.

"There," Ash said, with breathless satisfaction. "Won't be dancing around anymore, will you? Just sit tight, and I'll"—Ash spun, bracing her weapon across her body to block Coco as the huntress swung Blake's cleaver at her.

Ash grinned. "Don't worry, I didn't forget about you."

Coco and Ash parted, then swung at each other, trading blows that sent tremors up their arms and filled the room with the clang of steel on steel. Coco growled in fury and launched into a flurry of swipes that kept Ash blocking, finishing with a hooking slice aimed at Ash's head. Ash held her weapon parallel to the ground, caught the cleaver in its prongs, and ripped it from Coco's hands as she spun away from the strike.

But instead of trying to maintain her hold on the weapon, Coco let go and lunged forward as Ash spun away. She seized Ash's dislocated wing and wrenched it, making her drop the weapons and scream in pain. Holding her by the wing, she drove her fist into Ash's neck three times as Ash tried to pull free. Growling like an animal, Ash changed tactics by leaping back at Coco. She slammed the back of her head into Coco's nose, making Coco cry out and loosen her grip. Ash slipped free, grabbed Coco's wrist, and slid behind her back, twisting her arm like a pretzel.

Coco grunted, and Ash wrapped her neck in a headlock with her free arm. Coco's free arm writhed like a beached fish as she tried to struggle free. She staggered backwards, trying to shove Ash off, but all she succeeded in doing was moving back a few strides. Spots appeared in her vision as she struggled to draw breath.

"Any final words?" Ash hissed. Coco felt Ash's Semblance ripple through her body, and her vision grew even darker.

"Oh shut up," Coco wheezed.

With one final burst of effort, Coco crouched, bending at the waist. She snatched Ash's leg with her free arm, then snapped her legs straight again and leaned back. It wasn't much, but it was enough to send them toppling over. Coco leaned to her left as they fell, her vision blinking out as she leaned further into the headlock. Then she heard a wet meaty sound and felt a sudden burst of pain. She found she could breathe again, and her vision slowly returned.

Ash's arm was still around her neck, but it simply lay there without tension. To her right, a katana blade had erupted from Ash's torso, gouging an ugly cut in Coco's flank. Something shifted beneath both of them.

"Please move," Blake groaned.

Coco rolled off, wincing, then helped shove Ash off of Blake. The White Fang operative wasn't dead yet, but she was deep in the throes of shock. Coco kept a wary eye on her until she saw the last of the light fade from her eyes. After that she collapsed and clutched her side.

"Nice aim," Coco said. "Shame. We're still going to die."

"Nah," Blake said, her voice slurred with pain and exhaustion. "Abdominal wounds are overrated."

Coco nodded towards the back of the room, where Nora was fighting the Beringel. "I was talking about that."

Blake followed Coco's gaze, then gave what might have been a shrug had she possessed any more energy. Then Blake passed out, utterly spent.

…

Reese watched Nora leap back from another heavy swing of the Beringel's fists. Her dodges were as quick as before and her strikes were just as forceful. But she took longer to wind up for a swing, she evaded the beast by narrower margins, and she no longer attempted to knock back or turn away the strikes with her hammer. She was fading. The Grimm appeared to be fading as well, but its size and considerable strength were still ample enough to threaten Nora in her dwindling state, even as Reese emptied a third magazine into the beast's back.

Reese scanned the room for an alternative strategy. No sources of electricity for Nora except for the conduit to the machinery around Pyrrha's tank. Disturbing that before she was ready to rig together an alternative power supply could harm Pyrrha, or worse, wake her up. Coco's gun was too broken for a quick fix, and even if it wasn't there was a chance Reese would accidentally shred Nora if she managed to get it working. That left the magazine of flame rounds, but the Beringel was so tough it would likely burn Nora before the Dust effect brought it down.

Nora swung at the Grimm's right arm, knocking it out from under it—and the Grimm brought its left arm down, catching itself and pinning Nora's hammer to the ground. Nora crouched to leap back, but the Grimm was already swinging its right arm. Nora flew back through the air and crashed into the far wall of the room, crumpling into a heap on the floor. She groaned, stunned by the impact. The Grimm contemptuously threw aside her hammer and began to trudge towards her as she made weak, slow attempts to rise.

Memories of the last several months flooded Reese's mind, rooting her to the spot: Dangling helpless over the pit of Grimm, the fight with the Komodo in the rain, the ambush by the Griffon and the Beowolf at Beacon. She had frozen every time. Even when she had put up some sort of half-hearted resistance, she had turned into a cowering wreck. This was it. The Grimm would kill Nora no matter how many times she shot it, and then it would come for Reese and her incapacitated teammates. Death would be quick, but brutal.

Reese watched Nora grit her teeth and find her footing. She didn't try to charge the Grimm or run. Nora ignored it entirely, limping towards the medical tank, her eyes fixed on Pyrrha's human half. She reached the tank and began pounding her fists against the glass, like a child at an aquarium. She had given up fighting the Grimm, but she remained focused on her teammate instead of self-preservation, something that Reese had failed to do at Beacon. A failure that had created a rift between her and her team, and a rift in herself.

A rift she would never mend if they died here.

Reese let out a wild shout and charged towards the Beringel's back. She leapt onto the creature and climbed up its fur to its shoulders. She grabbed a fistful of hair with one hand to keep herself steady, pressed the barrel of the combat rifle into the back of its neck with the other, and fired. A burst of rounds pierced the Grimm's muscled neck and ignited its flesh, making it roar and toss back and forth to throw Reese off. Reese swung back and forth, dropping the rifle, but she held on despite the Grimm's thrashing, echoing its roar. She reached for the revolver tucked inside her pocket, when the Grimm stopped shaking. It reared onto its hind legs and reached back with its forearms, grasping for Reese.

Reese let go of its fur and dropped to the ground, but she had barely fallen a foot when the Grimm managed to snag her by the hood of her sweatshirt. It yanked her over its shoulder and slammed her into the ground, knocking the wind out of her, then it swept her up in an overhand arc and slammed her down again to its side. It yanked Reese up a third time, but this time she heard a ripping sound and felt herself travel away from the Grimm. She sailed across the room as the Beringel was left holding her hood.

She struck the floor and slid to a stop. Reese coughed, tasting blood in her mouth. Her Aura had burst, along with what felt like her remaining unbroken ribs. She wheezed, rolled onto her back, and felt for her revolver. She drew it and pointed it back the way she had come.

The Beringel was aflame from its head to its waist, like a monster from a huntsman's darkest nightmares. It beat its chest, the flames dancing along its arms as it roared. They would all die slightly hotter than if Reese had done nothing.

Reese smirked. This was better than nothing.

The Grimm charged towards her and she fired, her shots missing or causing no harm at all to the raging beast. Its feet shook the floor as it drew closer, its bulk looming both dark and bright at the same time, filling Reese's vision.

Something slammed down from above, pinning the Beringel to the floor close enough to Reese that she felt the heat of the flames. The door the Grimm had thrown through the window earlier had crashed down on top of it. It rose into the air and pivoted until it was perpendicular to the floor, almost touching the ceiling. Then it shot down like a guillotine blade, decapitating the Grimm. It slowly settled to the ground as the beast began to smoke.

Reese stared at the door, bewildered. From across the room, she heard Nora crying again. She looked over to see her collapsed against the tank. Inside, Pyrrha's human hand was extended towards the glass, surrounded by a faint black glow. The glow faded, and her hand floated back to her side, as if drifting off to sleep.


	15. Chapter 15

Almost an hour after the Beringel had faded to dust, eight huntsmen and a detachment of Vale's military forces found them in the lab. Reese mustered enough energy to help them prepare Pyrrha for travel, then fell into a haze of fatigue and medication. She slipped in and out of consciousness, the moments of wakefulness marked by a vague sensation of movement, droning engines, and a view of the inside of a bullhead.

When Reese finally woke to a lucid state of mind she found herself in a hospital bed, its head adjusted so she was sitting upright. She went to reach for the call button on her bed and winced, hissing as pain shot through her torso. She peeked down the neck of her hospital gown to find everything from her navel to her armpits wrapped in bandages.

"Nice work saving Nora," a voice said.

Reese looked over to find Coco reclining in a chair by the bed, dressed in a set of jeans and a loose tank top, her arms folded over her belly. She had more bruises, and a few stitches above one eye, but even after their brush with death she appeared fashionably weathered, like a set of pre-torn jeans. If Coco had told Reese her Semblance was always looking good, Reese wouldn't have batted an eye.

"It was all guts and no grace," said Coco. "But guts are the foundation. Everything else comes later." The corner of her mouth turned up.

Reese smirked back at her. "Isn't it a little cold this time of year for spaghetti straps?"

Coco grinned and gave her a rude hand gesture. She lifted the hem of her top with her other hand, displaying her own set of bandages. "You're not the only one bringing the _sarashi_ back into style. This hurts like a bitch if I wear anything heavier or tighter. I understand Blake's new outfit now."

Reese's smirk disappeared. "How are Blake and Nora? And everyone else?"

"Blake's fine, apparently," Coco said, stretching. "She disappeared the night after we got back to Vale. Nora bounced back like she'd only had a rough spar. She has some pain, but she's been getting around just fine with her Semblance. Ruined a dozen forks before they let her have unlimited lightning Dust. Royce irritated Vale enough to get them to leave two huntsmen teams with his village. They're going to help them relocate to that settlement on the Vacuo border. After that, they're going to scout the region for any further clues, or any stragglers that might have been away from the White Fang's base when everything went down."

"And Pyrrha?"

Coco sagged in her seat. She pulled out her scroll and tapped a quick message. "I don't know, but we're about to find out."

…

A few minutes later Nora entered, accompanied by Councilor Stonebridge and Ambassador Sylva. Nora had a dour look on her face, which was briefly replaced by a smile as she nodded to Coco and gave Reese the best hug she could manage with Reese's injuries. Reese gave her version of the mission's events, pausing once or twice to clarify details. After she finished, Sylva and Stonebridge produced confidentiality agreements, which attested that CNBR would claim to have encountered an unusually high concentration of Grimm, and a group of raiders particularly adept at baiting Grimm to soften fortified villages. All three of them hesitated.

"Why didn't you tell us everything?" Reese asked.

Stonebridge looked at her. "It was a need-to-know situation. You had enough information to accomplish your objectives. We were confident you could fill in the gaps, and you did."

"It was reckless," Coco said. "You withheld crucial information and unnecessarily lowered the odds of success. Quite frankly, that lack of trust isn't just insulting, it's counterintuitive."

Stonebridge pursed his lips. "I didn't need a full team of people I could trust. I needed scouts. If you happened to succeed—as you did—excellent. If you didn't, then it would be another argument in favor of committing greater resources towards our allegedly outlandish theory."

Reese balled her fists. "You didn't think we could do it."

"I had hoped you could, but no, I didn't."

Coco jumped to her feet. "You son of a bitch! When I tell people what you did—"

"You'll ruin the arrangement we made for your father?" Sylva asked. "Incarcerate yourself in a Vale prison? That would be an especially poor decision. Grimm activity is increasing across Remnant. Your teams need all their members. So many accidents can happen on a mission when teams are shorthanded."

Coco bared her teeth. Nora stood and glared at Sylva and Stonebridge.

"How do I know you'll take care of Pyrrha like you said you would?" Nora asked. "What if you decide that it's not worth trying to fix her?"

Sylva gave Nora a dismissive look. "You'll just have to trust us."

The door to the room flew open. "Actually, they'll just need to trust me."

Glynda Goodwitch strode into the room, shutting the door behind her with a flick of her riding crop, her heels clicking on the floor. Reese had never seen Beacon's assistant headmaster in person, but she had been right about her assessment from the few times she'd seen her on television: This was bar none, the scariest woman she had ever seen, surpassing Arslan by an Animan mile. Without even looking at Reese, she made her feel anxious that she wasn't neatly groomed or dressed, even if lying in a hospital bed was an acceptable excuse for looking disheveled.

"Professor Goodwitch," Stonebridge said, rising to meet her and extending a hand. "We were just—"

"Meeting without me to intimidate my students and a guest of the Kingdom?" Glynda said. "You have a troubling habit of holding these meetings when I've been otherwise occupied with urgent matters. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me."

She gave Stonebridge a hard stare. "No one fools me three times."

Stonebridge glowered at Professor Goodwitch, but he sat back down. Glynda nodded, then turned to face Reese, Coco, and Nora.

"Sign the papers," she said.

Coco gaped at her. "Professor Goodwitch, did you hear what they said?"

"I heard enough. But while their vague threats are crude and despicable, you still participated in a covert mission. Furthermore, I think that more harm than good will come from revealing Miss Nikos' condition to the public. Vale has already lost trust and resources in the wake of what happened at Beacon. It can't afford to lose face again. Furthermore, if her condition was made public, it wouldn't just demoralize Vale's citizens, it would terrify them. We don't fully understand the extent of her condition, but the implications of someone even _appearing_ to be part Grimm would cause a panic. The last thing we need right now is to make the populace even more tantalizing to the Grimm, or to make it easier for the people who ordered this to find her."

Nora gave Professor Goodwitch an anguished look. "But—"

"Don't worry," Glynda held up a placating hand towards Nora. "I've contacted General Ironwood, and Headmasters Lionheart and Aria. You have my assurance that we will use every resource the four of us have to help Miss Nikos. Now please, sign the papers."

The three huntresses reluctantly complied, signing without taking their eyes off Stonebridge. He snatched the papers from their hands and jabbed a finger at Glynda.

"That was confidential information. You had no right to share it with the other Kingdoms."

"The headmasters are trustworthy, and it was the right thing to do," Glynda said. "Ozpin would have done the same, and he would have swung the council's vote in his favor. It's not as if I communicated something life-threatening to the world, like the fact that the Ambassador can't swim despite the amount of time she spends travelling across the ocean, or that it would be very easy to accidentally kill you because of your severe allergy to five common types of nuts."

"How dare you threaten us!" said Sylva, glaring at her.

"I was stating facts, not making threats" Glynda said, her tone neutral. She flicked her riding crop. A fire extinguisher mounted by the door shot across the room towards the Ambassador's head, jerking to a halt an inch from her face. She shrieked, falling out of her chair.

"If anything happens to Miss Nikos, my students, or their teammates, what's left of you two won't fill a teacup. _That_ was a threat."

Sylva climbed to her feet, brushing herself off. She and Stonebridge exchanged glares with Glynda as they left the room. The Professor produced a notepad, wrote something down, and tore off the page. She handed it to Nora.

"My scroll number. If you feel that you require assistance resolving a dispute with them, or that they aren't conducting themselves properly, don't hesitate to call." Glynda gave the three of them a tiny smile. It was barely enough to change her perpetually disapproving frown, but it was somehow the most smug expression Reese had ever seen. Without a further word, she turned and left the room.

When she was sure the Professor was out of earshot, Coco broke the silence:

"Show of hands: Who wants to be Professor Goodwitch when they grow up?"

All three of them raised their hand.

…

Two days later, Reese pulled her now-hoodless hoodie on as she prepared to leave the hospital. She took hold of a cart they'd given her to tote her belongings to the airstrip and pulled it down the hall. She stuck her free hand in her pocket to let it rest there and felt paper.

She pulled out an envelope with her name written on the front. The handwriting was too relaxed to be Coco's, and too graceful to be Nora's. She sat on a bench in a side corridor, opened the envelope, and pulled out a folded sheet of notepad paper.

 _Reese_ , the letter read. _I'm sorry I left without saying anything. There's things I need to take care of, places I had intended to go before Vale persuaded me to join the three of you. My old colleague is still out there, and it appears that if Vale had ever intended to help me take care of him, they intended to use Pyrrha. Aside from being horrendously cruel, that plan seems destined to end in failure one way or another. There's nothing more I can do here, but I have ways of contacting Professor Goodwitch and Nora if I find anything that might help cure Pyrrha. Maybe I'll hear something when I investigate other branches of the White Fang._

 _Good job pulling through when things got tough. You've still got work ahead of you, but you're not as deficient as you might feel. You're resourceful, and under that bundle of anxieties there's someone who runs towards a crisis, not away from it. Get your fire back and strengthen your body enough to survive whatever trouble that crazy head of yours lands you in, and you'll be a great huntress._

 _From one work-in-progress to another, good luck._

 _-B_

Reese smiled down at the letter, then folded it back up and clutched it in her free hand.

"Good luck to you too."

…

"Eldest Brother," Reese swore. "Did a Goliath step on you, or did you just wake up like that?"

Reese had found Nora and Coco waiting at the airstrip on some staged cargo. Nora was sitting back against a crate, clutching her head. Coco was leaning upright against a taller container. She looked like a bird that had survived getting hit by a truck. Her hair was frazzled, her face looked pale and clammy, and her movements to remain in the shade were stiff. She had a cardboard carrier of coffee cups next to her in addition to her thermos, which she drank from in long pulls.

"So like I promised Nora," Coco said, her voice raw, "I found a bar where we could talk things over. By sheer coincidence, this happened to be across the street from a twenty-four hour diner that sells four pancakes for one Lien. We crossed the street five—"

"Six," Nora amended.

"—Six times last night. Neither of us got sick, but I feel so awful I wish I had. At this point, I think Nora's blood is equal parts syrup and alcohol. We would have invited you, but—"

"Don't worry about it," Reese said, moving next to Coco. "I can barely eat a sandwich without my ribs hurting. What you did last night might have literally killed me." She smirked at Coco. "You know, it's stuff like this that makes Vale want to raise the drinking age a few years above eighteen."

"Bite me, Skate Rat." Coco eyed the folded paper in Reese's hand. "She left you a letter too, huh?"

Reese nodded. "What did yours say?"

"Not much. 'I'm okay, here's proof I didn't get kidnapped by people who think I'm a White Fang spy, yadda yadda yadda, good luck, stay safe, call if you need help.' That girl's social skills are wildly inconsistent." Coco looked over at Nora. "What did she say to you?"

Nora drank from a water bottle before answering. "The same as you, just with some extra stuff about Pyrrha."

"Do you know anything else?" Reese asked.

Nora stared at the ground. "I went to see her with Professor Goodwitch. The one time they tried to wake her up she got wild and they had to sedate her again. They don't know if she had Grimm parts surgically attached, if they're infecting her like a parasite, or if it's just a mutation that looks like Grimm anatomy. One guy thinks that's not even her body. They say despite the blood test results, it could be a clone made from some trace DNA they found somewhere. It all sounds like something out of a bad science fiction movie."

"It's uncharted territory for everyone."

"Yeah," Nora said, her eyes misting. But then she smiled, and there was hope beneath her grief.

"But I know she's in there. Maybe we can't fix her now, maybe not for a long time. But if she's in there we can get her out. You can't have a Semblance without a soul."

…

Soon after, Nora left to board a bullhead to Patch. She gave the two of them the gentlest hugs she could manage, and then she was gone. Coco and Reese passed the time in silence, both too tired to hold up a conversation after the urgent topics had been discussed. A couple of hours later, Coco's scroll rang. She looked at it, ignored the call, and settled back into relative comfort.

"Your team?" Reese asked.

"Yeah," Coco said. "They can wait."

"My team should get here soon, you don't have to stay with me."

"Like hell I don't. You're still my responsibility until Arslan takes you back. I'm not going to leave you and run like I'm dropping off a package at the post office."

A cat-like grin crossed Reese's face. "Aww, you _do_ care."

"About Arslan not punching a hole in my chest? I'd say I care about that a lot."

Reese let out a snort of laughter and they fell back into silence. Some time later, a bullhead landed. Three figures emerged and walked towards Coco and Reese. Reese felt her heart start to race. It was irrational. She hadn't been on bad terms with Bolin or Nadir, and she'd been mostly civil with Arslan, even though they'd disagreed about her coming to Vale. Still, Reese clutched the corner of the cargo container at her back, as if afraid she would bolt if she wasn't holding onto something.

Nadir's face lined with distress when he saw Reese and they exchanged an embrace. The larger boy matched the strength of his hold to Reese's, giving a firm hug without aggravating her injured ribs. They parted, and Reese turned to Bolin. His eyebrows rose, then he traded grips with Reese, giving her hand a quick squeeze.

"You look you had more fun than we did," he said.

"Only if you have a weird definition of 'fun'," Reese replied.

"Storytime later?"

Reese started to reply when Arslan stepped forward. Reese shrank a bit and lowered her eyes as Arslan approached. She looked Reese over, her brow furrowed.

"How are you holding up?" Arslan asked.

"As best as I can." Reese forced herself to meet Arslan's eyes. "They say I'll need a couple weeks to heal up, then I can start easing back into training."

"Nothing permanent?"

Reese shook her head. Arslan's expression became neutral and she nodded. Then she frowned and turned to face Coco, her eyes flinty.

"Make no mistake," Arslan said. "I am _still_ angry that this happened to Reese, but you made it sound a lot worse than this. The way you spoke when you called me, I thought we were going to have to roll her home on a stretcher."

"I didn't exaggerate anything," Coco said, folding her arms.

"No, but when we spoke you were… _agitated_ , and hard to understand."

Coco's cheeks turned pink, and Reese could have sworn she trembled a little. Arslan's posture softened a bit, and she rolled her eyes.

"Probably just the damn interference on the daisy-chain radio you used to call Mistral."

"Yeah, probably," Coco muttered, looking away.

Arslan shrugged. "Is there any sort of red tape we have to deal with? I think we all want to get home as soon as possible."

Coco gestured towards a one-story building. "Just stop in the customs office while your flight is refueling, they'll handle everything. They're used to short stops so they'll do it quick."

"Good to know. I think we can take it from here."

Coco nodded, then turned to Reese. A wistful look crossed her face. "I think we've said everything we need to say. Stay bold, Skate Rat."

Reese flashed her a lazy salute. "Take it easy, Bossy Britches."

Coco snorted at that and turned to leave. After taking a few steps, Arslan drew alongside Coco and said something the rest of them couldn't hear. Coco nodded again, replied, and squeezed Arslan's hand. She squeezed back and clapped Coco on the shoulder. Then Coco flicked her sunglasses down from her brow and walked away, boots clicking across the tarmac.

"Where's your stuff?" Bolin asked.

"Here," Reese said, pointing at her cart. "Or in Vale's possession. They offered to load all the extra junk I brought along that we didn't use."

"Literally the least they can do after making you handle whatever mess they needed cleaned up," Arslan said. She sighed. "Let's just head to the office so we can leave—"

Reese wrapped her arms around Arslan, despite the pain it caused in her chest. Arslan froze, surprised, then laid an arm around Reese's shoulders and awkwardly patted her back. Words escaped Reese. Did she apologize for agreeing to help Vale? Start up old arguments? Reveal the secrets she'd been burdened with to relieve the pressure inside her? They'd been fortunate to survive. Some of it had been luck, but some of it had been grit and skill. Gratitude was in order. Arslan hadn't been directly involved, but she'd always done her best to lead and prepare ABRN for anything life threw at them.

"Thank you for all the workouts you made us do," Reese said. "Especially the crunches." The words sounded lame and underwhelming to Reese's ears, but they were truthful.

Arslan drew back and gave Reese a perplexed look. "The workouts you constantly complained about and usually tried to weasel out of?"

Reese nodded.

"You're welcome…is there something we need to discuss?"

Memories of writhing Grimm, fetid breath, and cries of pain from Grimm and humans alike flashed through Reese's head. She drew back and saw Nadir watching her with concern; Bolin smirking like he'd already planned the perfect homecoming celebration in Mistral's lower levels; and Arslan, furious underneath her concern, but furious for Reese, not at her. The memories didn't depart, but for a moment they faded to something more manageable, a dull roar in the background.

"No," Reese said, shaking her head. "Let's go home."

* * *

And that's the end! Thank you for reading my longest piece of writing to date. Writing it was a long journey, but one I'm glad I completed. I had fun, and I hope you did too.

I might post one or two one-shots in the coming weeks, but for the most part I'm going to take a break for a while to take care of personal matters and outline and plan my next story, but I'll be back!

Thank you again for reading!

-Sungrass


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